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The Grand Canal and Kialto Bridge 






WITCH WINNIE 
IN VENICE 

AND 

THE ALCHEMIST’S STORY 



•ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY 

Author of “Witch Winnie,” “Witch Winnie’s Mystery,” 
“Witch Winnie in Holland,” etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 


steal, 83 -y 1 








DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1897 




Copyright, 1897, by 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

. I. JUST A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGIN- 
NING, 1 

11. A CHILD’S DREAM OF VENICE, ... 11 

III. FIRST DAYS IN VENICE 27 

IV. THE CLOSED DOOR, 38 

V. ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO, . 54 

VI. ANGELO ZANELLI’S SECRET. ... 82 

VII. THE GOTHIC PALACES, 95 

VIII. ON THE LAGOONS, Ill 

IX. THE VENETIAN PAINTERS, 139 

X. A FESTA • . . .166 

XL VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY, . . 182 

XII. A RAY OF LIGHT— THE RENAISSANCE 

PALACES. 202 

XIII. A MODERN ALCHEMIST, 229 

XIV. C.ESAR BORGIA’S REVENGE. . . .246 

XV. SHREDS AND PATCHES, 267 







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INTRODUCTION. 


“ Shreds and Patches” is the title of the 
last chapter of the present volume ; and the 
author is aware that the entire book — with its 
scraps of history “ cut out of whole cloth its 
numerous quotations ; its old characters famil- 
iar in former stories ; its personal impressions, 
theories, and moral reflections ; its endeavor to 
be instructive and yet amusing ; and all this 
held together by the most transparent film of 
plot — is but a thing of shreds and patches.” 

My only apology is that this is exactly the 
process employed in the manufacture of the 
finest point applique lace. It is the work of 
many hands. The tiny flowers may have been 
cut from other and more antique specimens. 
They are ‘^applied” on a web of cheaper ma- 
chine-made net, or united by brides or tiny 
lacets, and bordered more or less elaborately, 
while the spaces between the sprigs and flow- 
ers were filled in with various kinds of stitches. 


VI 


INTRODUCTION. 


Then when the pattern is complete conies the 
more mechanical and laborious task of uniting 
all together by a stitch called ‘‘assemblage” 
or “ fine Joining.” 

This assemblage has been my work, and I 
have not found it tedious, for the applique 
flowers, the work of other hands which I have 
introduced, have been the part that I have 
loved and admired ; and they have seemed to 
fit themselves into new patterns, so that it has 
needed no ingenuity of mine to arrange them. 
And so I offer you the finished web, making no 
claim for originality, no other plea for the 
heterogeneous character of the work. 

The historical background which I have 
taken is that of the Italian Renaissance, on a 
few of whose brilliant names I have endeavored 
to flash a side light : 

The epoch ends, the world is still, 

The age has talked and worked its fill. 

The famous orators have shone. 

The famous poets sung and gone, 

The famous men of war have fought, 

The famous speculators thought, 

The famous players, sculptors wrought, 

The famous painters filled their wall, 

The famous critics judged it all. 


INTRODUCTION, 


vii 


And in the after silence sweet 
Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet 
Ascending pure the bell-like fame 
Of this or that down-trodden name, 

Delicate spirits pushed away 
In the hot press of the noon day. 

On that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom, 

Where many a splendor finds its tomb. 

Many spent fames and fallen mights. 

The one or two immortal lights 
Rise slowly up into the sky 
To shine there everlastingly.” 

Such were many of the Venetian painters of 
this period, such the gentle architect Sanso- 
vino. That the student may have a distinct 
idea of the chronological sequence of events, I 
give here the dates of birth and death of some 
of the personages mentioned in the story, and 
the beginning and end of the pontificates of 
three of the Popes : 


Giovanni Bellini 

born 1437, 

'died 

1516. 

Palma Vecchio 

“ 1480, 

i i 

1538. 

Giorgione 

“ 1477, 

i c 

1511. 

Titian 

“ 1477, 

i i 

1576. 

Tintoretto 

“ 1518, 

i i 

1594. 

Paul Veronese 

“ 1538, 

i ( 

1588. 

Sansovino 

“ 1479, 

i i 

1570. 

Bembo 

” 1470, 

i< 

1547. 


INTRODUCTION, 


viii 


Popes. 

Alexander V. (Rodrigo Borgia) from 1492 to 1503. 

Julius II. (De Rovere) “ 1503 “ 1513. 

Leo X. (Giovanni de Medici) “ 1513 “ 1522. 

The old alchemist Giovanni Zanelli is entirely 
a fictitious character ; and the plot, supposed 
to have been planned for his rescue by Titian 
and his friends, has, of course, no foundation in 
history. 

The briefest residence in Venice sets one to 
dreaming of the olden time. It is all so real, 
so present. There is no place where the pres- 
ent is so unreal, the actual so out of place. 
The old senators look out immortally upon us 
from the canvases of Titian, and seem to re- 
proach us for taking liberties with their city 
and invading their palaces. The very hotels 
were the homes of the illustrious and noble of 
other days. The Royal Hotel Danieli, on the 
Riva Degli Schiavoni, much . frequented by 
English and Americans, was built by the Dan- 
dolos in the fourteenth century, and was suc- 
cessively the palace of the Mocenigos, the Ber- 
nard!, and the Nani. Our own hotel, opposite 
the Salute, was the ancient home of the 
Zuchelli ; and every tourist has a sense of 


INTRODUCTION. 


IX 


X)roprietorsliip (at least as far as having once 
been its guest) in some palace on the Grand 
Canal. But the author imagines her friends to 
have more than a tourist’s transitory interest 
in Venice— in her art, her buildings, her his- 
tory, and her people. And so she invites her 
reader (as Lord Houghton did his), and as An- 
gelo might have asked Tib, to see the city. 

“ Not with the fancy’s flashing play, 

The traveller's vulgar theme, 

Where following objects chase away 
The moment’s dazzling dream — 

“ Not thus art thou content to see 
The city of my love, 

Whose beauty is a thought to me 
All mortal thoughts above ; 

And pass in dull, unseemly haste. 

Nor sight nor spirit clear. 

As if the first bewildering taste 
Were all the banquet here ! 

“ When the proud sea for Venice’ sake 
Itself consents to wear 
The semblance of a land-locked lake 
Inviolably fair — 

Surely may we to similar calm 
Our noisy lives subdue. 

And bare our bosoms to such balm 
As God has given to few. 


X 


INTRODUCTION. 


“ Thou knowest this, thou lingerest here, 
Rejoicing to remain ; 

• The plashing oars fall on thy ear 

Like a familiar strain. 

Come out upon the broad Lagoon, 

Come for the hundredth time. 

Our thoughts shall make a pleasant tune, 
Our words a worthy rhyme ; 

And thickly round us we will set 
Such visions as were seen 
By Tizian and by Tintoret 
And dear old Giambellin.” 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


CHAPTER I. 

JUST A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 

course it was all 
Winnie’s fault, only 
one of lier whimsi- 
cal pranks, but it 
brought about a 
long train of misun- 
derstandings which 
might have separat- 
ed forever two very 
congenial people, 
had not — but really 
one cannot tell an 
entire story in a single sentence. 

While Winnie was still in Holland, Adelaide, 
who, it will be remembered, had married Pro- 



2 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


fessor Waite, arrived with her husband, and 
persuaded Winnie to spend the winter with 
them in Venice, where Tib, who had laid by a 
little money of her own earning, agreed to meet 
them. The four took the apartemente sig- 
nor He., or main floor in a palace on the Grand 
Canal. Professor Waite had received an order 
to prepare some mural paintings for a public 
building in America, and the lofty ball-room of 
the palace made an excellent studio in which to 
paint these great canvases. They had timed 
their meeting so exactly that they were scarce- 
ly settled before Tib arrived, and all began to 
work with enthusiasm. Winnie and Tib had 
rooms whose balcony looked up toward the 
Rialto Bridge and down toward the Church of 
the Salute. Professor Waite was as kind and 
helpful as in the old days ; and they took their 
studies to him for criticism. They made fre- 
quent gondola trips to interesting spots for 
sketching, and Adelaide was always ready to 
accompany them to the historic places which 
they knew so well already from report, but 
which they were eager to see with their own 
eyes. There was so much to explore, so many 
new sensations waiting on every hand, that it 


A LITTLE MISTAKE IK THE BEGINNING. 3 


was some little time before Winnie set her 
palette ; but Tib, who grudged every moment 
for her art, and felt that all these glorious hours 
of privilege were fast stealing away, began to 
work from the outset. There was one weekly 
interruption into which she was drawn, out of 
deference to Adelaide. The Waites speedily 
gathered about them a coterie of friends, and 
every Thursday afternoon the great canvases 
were moved back, rugs were spread down, and 
there was an informal reception. The friends 
who came were chiefly members of the resident 
American colony, with an occasional passing 
tourist, and, as they became better acquainted, 
a sprinkling of the Italian element. 

Tib rebelled against this evening “ wasted” 
in society. ‘‘ I did not come to Venice to see 
people, but to see Venice,” she said to Win- 
nie. ‘‘ I would rather have a building like the 
Doge’s Palace talk to me than to listen to the 
twaddle and commonplaces of ordinary so- 
ciety. ’ ’ 

‘‘ That old ball-room looks as if it could say 
a thing or two if it were so minded,” Winnie 
had replied. “ Sit on the divan in the corner 
and study the frescoes on the ceiling and the 


4 


WITCH wmmE m Venice. 


old portraits on the wall. They ‘ could a tale 
unfold,’ and perhaps they will to you.” 

It was here that Winnie had left her for a 
few moments on their first Thursday, seated 
quite by herself, listening with amused scorn to 
the mingled stream of three conversations 
which drifted in upon her, and quite unaware 
that a young man in one of the groups, whom 
a vivacious girl was endeavoring to entertain, 
was regarding her with interest. 

What a picture that girl with the Madonna 
face makes, with her calm, statuesque profile 
outlined against those Oriental hangings !” he 
said to his companion. 

The girl had just made a lively remark which 
he had entirely missed, and she looked at Tib, 
a little piqued by his admiration, and replied 
doubtfully : Yes ; but don’t you think it a lit- 
tle affected to assume that absorbed, beatific 
air when one is in company ? She looks a trifle 
posed, it seems to me— as though she were 
quite conscious of the effect she is creating.” 

‘‘ Do you think so ?” the young man asked. 

Now, to me her attitude is delightfully un- 
conscious. I rather like her being silent, too. 
A silent woman usually says something worth 



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A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 5 


listening to when she does speak, and affords a 
refreshing contrast to the glib chatterer who 
rattles off a mess of nonsense on all occa- 
sions.” 

A look of rage shot across the girl’s face. 
The young man, with all his culture, was a 
trifle oblivious ; and it had not occurred to him 
that his remarks might have a personal applica- 
tion. 

“ I am willing to wager that when that girl 
next opens her mouth it will be to make some 
such sententious observation as ‘ I am awfully 
hungry ! ’ ” said the angry young woman. 

Those spiritual, intellectual faces often be- 
long to very sordid or even volatile natures.” 

Volatile ! Never ! I accept your wager. 
We will step near enough to overhear a bit of 
her conversation with the next person who 
speaks to her ; and if it does not prove that she 
possesses a very superior mind, I am no judge 
of character.” 

Winnie was passing, on her way to drag Tib 
from her seclusion, and overheard this last re- 
mark. ‘‘ Who is it that this very judicial 
young man is going to measure in this authori- 
tative fashion?” she wondered. ‘‘How very 


6 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


unjust of him ! I do hope the poor victim will 
pass her examination.” 

‘‘ Have the palace walls been talking to you, 
all alone in this corner she asked of Tib. 
“ If not, I fear you have been boring yourself 
to death.” 

‘‘On the contrary,” Tib replied, “I have 
been much amused while listening to the ele- 
vated conversation of three dijfferent groups — 
two artists, three scandal* loving old dames, 
and some girls who were comparing gowns 
and cooking recipes. They have scattered 
now, but for a time their chat blended in a 
most pleasing symphony — something like this : 

‘ Now, dear, don’t you think that five chap- 
erones . . . mixed in one Welsh rabbit, beaten 
until perfectly smooth and hashed up fine, 
with Just a least soupgon of garlic . . . and 
bitumen — you can’t get your perfect tone- effect 
without bitumen ... I am positive that Rem- 
brandt, and Titian, and all the great tonalists 
used ... to take her to the Moulin Rouge 
. . . really it was positively reckless in her to 
be seen in public in such disreputable com- 
pany. She might have managed her little con- 
solations so much better . . . now, I always 


A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 7 


begin with lobster d la Newburgh, and then a 
cheese souffle^ or some sort of pate for an entre.^ 
with n. filet, and birds with the salad ; and then 
for dessert some simple thing like ... a group 
of modern symbolists and impressionists, with 
all their realistic embodiment of the tragedy of 
human life, their august melancholy and poetic 
intensity, their scorn of prettiness, and their 
worship of mysticism, and . . . the sweetest 
Paquin gown, copied from one of Pompadour’s, 
with the sleeves houiUonnees and paillottees.^ 
and the dearest red velvet stole, coming way 
down the front, all elaborately embroidered 
and festooned with . . . soft-shell crabs and 
pistache ice cream, and . . . the worst scandal 
of the season, culminating in a divorce case 
that was really shocking. The wretched hus- 
band committed suicide. They had the best 
medical experts ; but it was of no use, there 
was no remedy known to science for that kind 
of poison. You see, he had made death sure 
by . . . lunching with me. I made the me- 
ringue myself. ... It was very sad, a scan- 
dal of this kind . . . always de2)ends for its 
success on having it hot. You pop them into 
the chafing-dish and add plenty of cayenne and 


8 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


tobasco, and in two minutes it is done to a 
turn, provided you don’t forget to put in . . . 
MacMonnie’s Bacchante or if you prefer, 
some of those little Tanagra figurines ; but 
really the best examples of antique art are to 
be found ... at the opera. Her costume was 
a dream, only a bird of paradise in her hair, 
and the most ravishing orchids, the severe sim- 
plicity of ... a Puvis de Chavannes, as near 
an approach to pure spirit as one can attain in 
this world, even when we consider that . . . 
the punch was really much too strong, and the 
champagne flowed like water. ’ ” 

While Tib was running on in caricature of 
the jumbled conversations to which she had 
listened, Winnie could have screamed with de- 
light, for she noticed that the autocratic young 
man wsls listening with uncomprehending eyes 
and a general expression of astonishment and 
mystification. 

‘‘ Delightful !” Winnie whispered ; but it’s 
not nearly so bad as what I have been enduring 
at the other end of the room, where an Eng- 
lishman, who had been shooting big game in 
India, a college fellow just back from the 
Olympian Games, and a girl who had had her 


A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 9 


first shopping experience in Paris, were all try- 
ing to outtalk each other— like this ; ‘ And 
when you consider how Asiatic elephants do 
. . . shrink in the wash, you must have them 
made as full as ... an eight-oared crew after 
a university race, and a good training table 
would only allow the men to eat . . . French 
clocks and Vienna bronzes, and a set of Sevres 
porcelain, besides a few little bits of bijouterie., 
such as . . . crocodiles fully twenty feet long, 
and a royal Bengal tiger, the kind that . . . 
buttons on the side, and that is what I call a 
great reduction, almost equal to . . . the 
world’s sprinting record . . . but at the Bon 
Marche they were selling the cunningest little 
. . . football players ... by the gross for 
. . . two ostriches and a lioness *, but I don’t 
consider that a remarkable day’s sport at all 
when you compare it with the . . . Prince of 
Wales’ bag, which contained . . . the cheapest 
golf stockings . . . printed in those bright 
poster colors, and . . . luffing up with the 
wind before the cyclone struck them, and . . . 
dash in, Tib ; I’m giving out ; come to my 
rescue with some more of your talk. I’ll tell 
you why by and by.” 


10 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


And Tib, not comprehending why Winnie 
wished it, bnt infected with her spirit of mis- 
chief, elaborated with great effect the absurd 
mixture, while Winnie kept up a running ac- 
companiment of athletic slang, hunter’s boasts, 
and shopping experiences. 

You have won,” said the serious young 
man to the malicious girl. “ I never heard 
such unadulterated, condensed nonsense in all 
my life. Those girls must be utter idiots. I 
did not think it possible that the human brain 
could be reduced to such hash.” 

The malicious girl smiled with serene satis- 
faction. There is such a thing,” she said to 
herself, as being altogether too bright.” She 
understood the situation, and was perfectly 
satisfied with the result. 


CHAPTER II. 


A child’s dream or VENICE. 


LOVED her from my childhood ; 
she to me 

Was as a fairy- city of the 
heart, 

Rising like water-columns from 
the sea, 

Of joy the sojourn, and of 
wealth the mart.” 

Byron. 

Tib had dreamed all 
her life of Venice. The 
lirst books that she re- 
membered reading of 
her own choice were a row of small volumes on 
the top shelf of the family secretary, entitled 
‘‘British Poets,” and these— Byron, Rogers, 
Shelley, Shakespeare — all wrote of Venice, and 
all made a deep impression on her imagination. 
She lived on a lonely Long Island farm. The 
yellow, sandy dunes on the landward side were 



12 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


dreary and monotonous, but tlie little land- 
locked cove, where she was allowed to paddle 
about in an old tub of a boat, offered unlimited 
resources to the play of her fancy. To thought- 
less onlookers it was only little Tib Smith, of 
Scup Haven, in her pink sunbonnet, rowing in 
and out among the seaweed- covered piles of a 
deserted and dilapidated wharf. They did not 
know that she had invented an amusement for 
herself of which she never tired ; that the grain 
elevator just visible in the distance, where the 
white houses ran down to the new steamboat 
landing, was for her the Venetian Campanile ; 
the lighthouse on the rocks, with its low dome, 
San Marco, and this row of a dozen decaying 
old posts, between which she loved to paddle, 
were the marble colonnades of the palaces on the 
Grand Canal. At the landward end of the 
wharf a few planks remained, roofing the piles 
and making a shelter under which the boat 
could be drawn up at night. In this cave Tib 
liked to sit, absorbed in her book, or watching 
the antics of the fiddler crabs on the sand at 
her feet, or the play of light on the vista of 
rich, dark posts stretching out before her, fram- 
ing in their openings glimpses of blue sky and 


A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


13 


bluer sea, crossed by an occasional white sail. 
But always, as she read or idly gazed, she 
“ made believe’’ that the little cave in which 
she sat was a palace hall, and that she was 
looking out across the Venetian lagoons. 
Sometimes she acted monologues, in which she 
took the part of all the charaf'ters. The trag- 
edy of the Foscari was her favorite ; and she 
wept often over the old doge who was obliged 
to pass sentence of banishment on his own son, 
so unjustly found guilty of treason from ad- 
missions wrung from him in torture, and from 
the evidence of his enemy Loredano. 

Sometimes she arranged the wedding proces- 
sion of young Foscari with the daughter of the 
noble Contarini as it took place before his 
trouble fell on him ; and chips laden with bell- 
shaped flowers represented gondolas bearing 
ladies, and were sent bobbing out on the retreat- 
ing tide to dire disaster. 

There was an old lobster crate which stood 
for the gloomy dungeons, approached by a 
Bridge of Sighs built of sand. In this she im- 
mured, by the order of an imaginary Council 
of Ten, countless flddler crabs, each one sup- 
posed to be the unfortunate Jacopo Foscari. 


14 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


But she always connived at their escaj)e, and 
clapped her hands when a particularly lively 
prisoner scuttled out of his. dungeon or, when 
sent to exile in a galley constructed from an 
old sardine box, the intrepid crab leaped over- 
board and, regardless of consequences, swam 
back to Venice. 

One day a very remarkable thing happened. 
There was company at Captain Israel Snyder’ s 
house. Captain Israel was their nearest neigh- 
bor. He was owner as well as captain of his 
ship, and was seldom at home, for his wife had 
died long ago, and his daughter had accom- 
panied her father on his voyages, and had been 
educated and married somewhere in foreign 
parts.” But Captain Snyder’s old maid sisters 
lived in the comfortable house, and it was one 
of Tib’s delights to call upon them and be shown 
the curiosities which the captain had brought 
back to them from his voyages. There were 
shells, and coral, and carved sandalwood boxes, 
and queer pictures on rice paper, and jars of 
preserved ginger, and boxes of Smyrna paste. 

Lately the captain had resigned his position, 
and had, as he said, lain by for repairs but 
he was an old man, and people shook their 


A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


15 


heads when they quoted this statement. It 
was, therefore, a matter of interest not only to 
Tib but to the entire community when a quan- 
tity of luggage was deposited on the captain’s 
veranda, and the news ran through the town 
that Captain Snyder’s daughter had come to 
visit him. So much Tib had heard ; but one 
day, as she was playing with her Foscari crabs, 
a handsome boy, about her own age, peeped 
down at her from the openings between the rot- 
ting planks of the old wharf. He wore a jersey 
striped broadly in dark blue and white, and 
topping his curly black locks was a crimson, 
purse-shaped cap. 

What are you playing there, little girl, all 
by yourself f ’ he asked in correct English, but 
with an odd accent. 

I am playing Venice,” Tib replied shyly. 

‘‘ May I come down and play too ? I used 
to live in Venice, and I’m awfully lonesome.” 

Tib welcomed her unexpected guest, and he 
at once threw himself into the spirit of her 
play, tracing a plan of the city in the sand with 
her wooden shovel, and letting the water into 
the canals. Together they built palaces of oys- 
ter shells and bits of broken crockery, and an 


16 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


old straw hat was mounted on four shingles to 
represent the dome of the Salute. 

While the boy knew more of the topography 
of Venice, Tib was much better informed as to 
its history ; and day after day they found each 
other’s society vastly entertaining. My name 
is Lolo,” he had said ; that is the name they 
call me ; but my true name is Angelo Zanelli. 
What is yours ?” 

‘‘ My real name is Nellie Smith, but my nick- 
name is Tib. Father calls me Tibbety Tibbets.” 

“I don’t like any of your names,” Angelo 
replied frankly, “ except Nellie. That is 
pretty, but it does not go well with your last 
name. Smith is hideous. It sounds like the 
locomotive letting off steam — S-s-s-m^Y7^. Don’ t 
you think it would be a great deal nicer if you 
had my name — Nellie Zanelli ? If you were 
my sister that is what your name would be. 
Don’t you like it 

Tib confessed that she did think Nellie 
Zanelli more musical than Tib Smith. 

‘‘Then,” said Angelo, “I am going to ask 
my mother if there is any way I can give you 
my name.” 

The next time they met Angelo was jubilant. 


A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


17 


“I asked grandpa,” Angelo said, ‘'and at 
first lie laughed, and then he said it could be 
managed very easily after we grow up, provid- 
ed we both wish it then. And I will not have 
to take your name either. I thought I might 
have to be Tibbety Tibbets Smith — and I 
would have borne it for you, Nellie— but grand- 
pa says that is not necessary. So now you 
must never, never forget that you are to be Nel- 
lie Zanelli. And you must not let any other 
boy give you his name, no matter how much 
prettier it may be.” 

This Tib readily promised, and every day 
that summer the playmates traced their mimic 
Venice in the sands, and Lolo gave her fasci- 
nating descriptions of the city itself. It seemed 
that he lived in a palace with a beautiful log- 
gia with white marble tracery carved like lace. 
Lolo drew the pattern in the wet sand with the 
help of an old tin can, which he used as a sort 
of cake- cutter, stamping out the intersecting 
circles. He described the ball-room, too, with 
its ceiling frescoed with frolicsome nymphs and 
its many other lordly and sumptuous features ; 
but his chief delight in this old palace was a 
suite of three small rooms which he had dis- 


18 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


covered, and of whose existence he was sure no 
one else knew. 

‘‘ There is a portrait in the ball room,” Lolo 
said, a portrait of one of my ancestors hold- 
ing a rapier half drawn from its sheath. I 
used to be very tired of seeing him eternally 
daring me to combat ; and once, when my 
mother was away on a visit and I was in the 
room all alone, I said, ‘ Well, fight then, if 
you want to ; ’ and I rushed at him with a stick 
which I had in my hand. But I stumbled and 
fell against the frame, and in doing so I moved 
a latch— for the picture was really a door— and 
it swung open just a little, and I easily pushed 
it wider, and there was a little narrow staircase 
leading down. So down I went, and found 
three funny little rooms with very little furni- 
ture. In the first room only an old bedstead 
stripped of its coverings, and a little cabinet 
with drawers and pigeon-holes stuffed with yel- 
low, old letters and papers. The next room 
was very queer. It was like a kitchen, only 
not quite like one. It had a little furnace of 
brick- work, with a chimney, and strangely 
shaped kettles and pipkins, and a sink all black- 
ened with slops that had been j)oured into it 


A CIIILD^S DREAM OF VENICE. 


19 


and stained the marble ; and there was a shelf 
of vials of queer shapes, some with medicines 
in them and some empty. It was a fine place 
to play drug store in, and I had rare sport 
afterward making up pills and pounding in a 
little mortar ; but I had sense enough not to 
take my medicines, or else I might have been 
poisoned.” 

‘‘What a queer place!” Tib commented; 
“ perhaps it had been a doctor’s office.” 

“ That is what I thought,” Angelo replied ; 
“ and the third room, which had nothing in it 
at all but some rows of empty book shelves, 
may have been the anteroom where his patients 
waited, for a little staircase led from this room 
down to a door which had once opened on a 
side street, but which was now walled up with 
stone. I asked my old nurse, Bianca, the next 
day, whether any one of my ancestors had been 
a doctor, and she said yes, there was one, but I 
must never ask my father about him, for he 
was a very bad man, and had perished miser- 
ably for his crimes, to the disgrace of our fam- 
ily. She would not tell me any more just 
then ; but another day we happened to be walk- 
ing down the calle (I mean the little side street). 


20 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 

• 

and I pointed ont the door that had been 
walled up, and asked her what it meant. She 
crossed herself, and showed me a cross traced 
in the mortar, and said it had been closed by 
the order of the Holy Inquisition, which had 
burned my ancestor with the books taken from 
his own library because he was a wizard and a 
murderer, a maker of poisons and a killer of his 
patients by horrible means which he had learned 
in Eastern countries. This was so very dread- 
ful that I determined not to speak to my father 
about it, for I knew that it would pain him. 

‘ Does my mother know this ? ’ I asked ; and I 
was glad when Bianca said that she did not. I 
asked her why this side door had been walled 
up instead of the front door of our palace, and 
Bianca said that it had opened into the wiz- 
ard’s laboratory and library, which were for- 
merly somewhere in the cellars under the 
house, but that they must have been filled up 
with earth, as, though they had been searched 
for, no such rooms could be found or any door 
or passageway on the inside of the house cor- 
responding to the bricked doorway on the 
calle. Then I knew that I was the only one 
who knew the secret of the little rooms, and 


A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


21 


that really they were not in the cellars, but be- 
tween the main floor, where the grand apart- 
ments are, and the lower story, where the jani- 
tor lives. Bianca told me that the ghost of my 
wicked ancestor, a bent old man in a long black 
cloak, had been seen passing in and out of that 
walled- up door, walking right through the solid 
stone. But she made me promise never to tell a 
word of this to my mother or my father ; and, 
indeed, I would not pain my dear mamma for 
worlds by telling her about this bad man. I 
used to hope that his ghost would come in 
some day while I was there. 1 would have 
asked whether it was really true that he had 
killed anybody on purpose— for, you know, he 
might have done it by mistake. I could not 
go down to the little rooms as often as I would 
have liked, for I did not want to be found out ; 
but when mother had gone out for a trip to the 
Lido, and Bianca thought I had gone with her, 
I would have my chance of an hour or so among 
the bottles.’’ 

Angelo’s story of the little rooms interested 
Tib greatly. You must show them to me if I 
ever go to Venice,” she said. 

“ If you go ! Of course you will go,” An- 


22 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


gelo replied. When you are Nellie Zanelli, 
you must come and live in Venice.” 

So all summer the children played together 
on the beach ; but when autumn came, Captain 
Israel’s daughter and grandson went back to 
Venice, and that winter Captain Israel Snyder 
sailed away on his long voyage to the undis- 
covered country, and Tib knew that Lolo would 
never come to Scup Haven again. Before he 
had gone he had given her a farewell present, a 
little silver box which he had found in the old 
cabinet in the little room. It was shaped like 
a snulS-box, but was smaller, and there was an- 
other exactly like it. They screwed together 
at the back and formed one box with two com- 
partments. Each had the word Zanelli en- 
graved upon the lid, and each contained small, 
glass-like globules, which might have been 
taken for beads but that they were not per- 
forated. Lolo kept the box with the green 
balls, and gave Tib that containing amber ones. 

‘‘ Don’t eat them, they may be poison,” the 
boy had said ; ‘ ^ but if you ever forget what 
your name is going to be you can look at the 
lid of this box. See, I have scratched off the 
Za on my box, so it reads Nelli, and that means 


A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


23 


you. I shall wait for you, Nellie, and I shall 
not give my name to any one else, for there is 
no one in the world I love so much.” 

And so her ]olaymate faded out of her life ; 
and though she never quite forgot him, Tib 
gradually gave up all expectation of ever seeing 
Lolo again. But she never relinquished the 
hope that some day she would see Yenice. 
When spring came and she could return to her 
play on the beach she acted her little dramas 
again all by herself, as she had done before the 
coming of Lolo. One day her father followed 
her, and heard her repeating a monologue to 
herself : 

“ There is a glorious city in the sea ; 

The sea is in the broad and narrow streets, 

Ebbing and flowing, and the salt seaweed 
Clings to the marble of her palaces.” 

“Where are your ]3alaces, little girl?” he 
called in his hearty way. “ Acting a play all 
by your little lonesome? Guess you are too 
much by yourself, and we will have to send 
you to school.” 

But school only gave new food to her imagi- 
nation. She studied every photograph and 
etching that came in her way, and listened later 


24 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


to lectures by Professor Waite on Venetian his- 
tory and Venetian art, and in the city exhibi- 
tions and at the picture -dealers’ learned to 
know something of the marvellous Venetian 
coloring. It was always her hope, her ambi- 
tion to some day see the wonderful city of her 
dreams, though the mirage faded farther and 
farther away as she grew older. She was an 
art student now, and had been in Europe, 
though it had never been possible for her to 
visit Italy ; but at last this longed-for privi- 
lege had come to her, the dream of her life had 
come true, and Tib was in Venice. She had 
stepped into a strange hallucination when she 
took her seat in the gondola, when Winnie met 
her at her arrival at the railway station, and 
had drifted quite out of the reality of travel. 
She had lived an unreal, romantic life as a 
child— a life created by her own imagination. 
Now the romance was real, but it all seemed 
the glamour of a dream. 

It is impossible !” she kept repeating be- 
neath her breath. ‘‘ I shall wake up in a few 
moments. These palaces flitting by, these 
glimpses, up narrow canals, of bridges and bal- 
conies, and roses clambering over garden walls. 



Court of the Ducal Palace. 



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A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 


25 


will all dissolve ; but let me enjoy the illusion 
while it lasts.” It was all so familiar and so 
satisfying ! As the gondola, after many hair- 
breadth evasions of collision in the narrow, tor- 
tuous waterways, glided out upon the Grand 
Canal, she recognized the Rialto Bridge and 
many of the palaces. “That 1 should really 
see them,” she murmured — “the palaces of 
Venice, with the quatrefoils over the arches in 
the loggias, just as Lolo used to cut them in the 
sand with the tomato- can !’ ’ 

“Are you out of your mind?” Winnie 
asked. 

“I do not wonder you think so,” Tib re- 
plied ; “ but it is all so strangely familiar.” 

“ Perhaps you lived here once in some pre- 
vious state of existence,” Winnie said jest- 
ingly. 

“Yes, long ago, when I was a child,” Tib 
replied, “ I used to build mimic palaces, and 
fancy that I would live in a real one some day. ” 

The gondola stopped gently in front of a 
flight of marble steps, and Tib, still dazed, 
gazed at the beautiful old building. 

“ Why, this is a palace,” she said to Winnie. 
“ What business have we here ?” 


26 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“Yes,” Winnie replied, “a palace let in 
floors, like an apartment house, and we have 
the best floor. We have all that lovely loggia, 
as they call the balcony, except the end, which 
is railed off in front of the door at the corner. 
Some one else has the right to use that part, 
and the door opens into a passage leading to 
the main hallway. But whoever this other 
tenant may be, I have not seen him yet, and 
we really have the entire beautiful balcony 
quite to ourselves.” 

The haunting feeling of familiarity explained 
itself to Tib when she entered the ball-room 
studio. It was such a house as this that had 
been Lolo’s home, for there were the frescoed 
nymphs, “attributed to Giorgione,” on the 
ceiling, and a row of ancestors’ portraits on the 
wall. But of course there were a hundred such 
houses in Venice, and Lolo was probably now 
a very ordinary man. 


CHAPTER III. 


FIRST DAYS IN VENICE, AND ANOTHER LITTLE 
MISTAKE. 



O every traveller wlio 
has read much, even 
if he has had no 
such experience as 
Tib’s, Venice at first 
view brings a cer- 
tain strange, haunt- 
ing sensation of 
familiarity. It is so 
satisfying, too, ful- 
filling and more 
than realizing all 


our preconceived ideas ; a constantly increas- 
ing delight which does not diminish or pall on 
closer acquaintance ; one of the few things that 
no one can overpraise — at least for the artist or 
for a mind sensitive to artistic and poetic infiu- 


ences. 


28 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


The palace in which thej^ had taken the state 
apartment kept its old traditions very well. 
There were no anachronisms of modern con- 
veniences of any kind. Though there were 
other lodgers in the house, they rarely met them 
on the staircase, and never elsewhere. The 
girls’ bedroom was paved with scagliola, a mo- 
saic exactly like that on the floors of the Ducal 
Palace, which struck the foot with a chill shock 
at rising, and reminded Winnie perversely of 
slices of bologna sausage. Their windows, too, 
looked across all the shimmer and changing life 
of the canal to the dome of the Salute, a pros- 
pect of which they never wearied. There was 
a better view of the church from the balcony ; 
and here Tib loved to sit with her travelling 
sketch-box in her lap, while she brushed in 
view after view of the church, getting a differ- 
ent effect with the varying lightings of sunset, 
or dawn, or midday ; of white mist, or stormy 
cloud, or clear, azure sky. There were few 
American guests at the hotels at this season. 
It was growing too warm, and the tourists had 
flitted to the Italian lakes and the Tyrol ; but 
Italians from the south of Italy, for whom Ven- 
ice is a summer watering-place, had taken their 


FIRST DAYS IN VENICE. 


29 


place, and the city was as full of sightseers and 
idlers as ever, while the regular inhabitants had 
adopted an out-of-door life and kept up a cheer- 
ful chatter in their musical tongue. There was 
much coming and going from the lagoon, where 
the sea breezes were fresh and cool. There was 
always a group of gondolas at the palace steps, 
tempting the ever-active Italians to wander ; but 
Tib was so contented right there in this hang- 
bird’s nest that it was long before she yielded to 
Winnie’s suggestions of other delights to be ex- 
plored. She had the balcony quite to herself. 
Others looked in for a moment and passed out 
again, but no one seemed to care as she did 
to ensconce herself there from breakfast until 
luncheon. There were signs that a gentleman 
found the end which had been reserved for 
other lodgers a favorite haunt in the very early 
morning, for there were always fresh cigar 
ashes on the table, an empty cotfee-cup, and a 
volume of Ruskin, all of which a servant car- 
ried away later in the day. Tib had not noticed 
these indications, but nothing escaped Win- 
nie’s keen observation. 

‘‘It is rather odd that we never meet our 
friend the elderly English architect,” she re- 


30 


WITGII WINNIE IN VENICE. 


marked. He comes here so regularly for Ills 
morning colfee, liis chai}ter of Riiskin, and his 
little smoke, that it would be natural for us to 
hnd him here some day. I wonder whether he 
has ascertained the hour that we usually take 
possession, and leaves designedly before we ar- 
rive. If so, he is either very shy or else consid- 
erate of us, and afraid of frightening us away. 
In either case, I like him for it.” 

‘‘ Yes,” Tib replied absently, “ it is very good 
of him. Who did you say he is 

‘‘ I said the elderly English architect who in 
the morning monopolizes the end of the balcony 
which does not belong to us. There are always 
Italians there in the evening listening to the 
serenades and watching the eifect of the moon- 
light and the reflections of the lanterns in the 
water; •but our friend is the only one who is 
sufficiently ‘ matinaT to have discovered its 
charms at dawn. Young people do not like to 
get up early ; therefore I argue that man has 
either passed the age of spending the night 
with the boys, or else he is a very serious 
young man. No, he cannot be young at all ; 
no young man could resist these lovely Vene- 
tian nights. Sherlock Holmes has made it joer- 


FIRST BATS IN VENICE. 


31 


fectly easy. We have only to open onr 
eyes and judge from unmistakable indica- 
tions.” 

“ But why do you conclude that he is an 
Englishman and an architect f ’ 

“ Because his Buskin is a London edition — 
that gives a clew as to the nationality ; then he 
is moved to indignation at what Buskin says 
against Benaissance architecture, and no one 
but an architect would have eared. He has 
probably studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts 
in Paris, for the Ecole is given over to the 
Benaissance. It is fun to see how he has 
marked all these passages and thrown in ex- 
clamation points and interrogation points, and 
such remarks as ‘ Absurd ! ’ and ‘ Untrue,’ and 
‘I wish some one would answer this,’ in the 
margin.” 

‘‘ Do you think it quite fair to read written 
notes without permission f ’ Tib asked. 

‘‘ I did not know, when I began to read, that 
there were any notes,” Winnie replied. ‘‘I 
am sure Buskin is public property. I opened 
the book to his quotation of Sir Walter Scott’s 
description of scenery in the Trossachs, where 
he says : 


32 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“ ‘ Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 

Was bathed in floods of living Are.’ 

Raskin quotes it to prove that the Gothic im- 
agery, in the nse of the word spire., is what 
gives beauty to the passage ; and he argues 
that the corresponding term taken from classi- 
cal architecture would not have been so poetic. 

‘ Suppose,’ he says, ‘ Sir Walter had written : 
‘‘Each purj)le peak, each flinty pediment.” 
Why would the poem be spoiled ? Simply be- 
cause those pediments and architraves never 
excited a single pleasurable feeling in you, and 
never will to the end of time.’ This is what 
excites the ire of our old friend the architect. 
Evidently classical terms sound melodiously to 
his aged ear, and to him the image of a Greek 
temple is as beautiful as that of a Gothic cathe- 
dral. I can see him shaking his gray head 
vigorously. Some way I see signs of vigor as 
well as age ; and I believe he has a perfect * 
mane of iron-gray hair, and I sympathize with 
him, Tib. I like the Gothic palaces here in 
Venice ; but, indeed, I think the classical ones 
have a great deal of dignity too. Now, look at 
the Salute over there. It is almost mountain- 
ous in outline. When the moonlight rested on 



Church of the Salute 







FIRST DA TS IJV VENICE. 


33 


it last night it reminded me of the snowy dome 
of Mont Blanc. Of course not so immense, 
but majestic and i^ure ; and when the sunset 
flushed it all rosy pink as we were drifting 
by the other evening, the fagade rose above us 
like some sheer precipice — the cliffs of Dover, 
perhaps. Oh, I am sure that Renaissance 
architecture furnishes just the imagery with 
which to describe mountains in poetic lan- 
guage, and I believe Sir Walter could have 
done it.” 

‘‘ Of course he could,” Tib replied. ‘‘ I am 
not Scott, but I believe J could do it, ” and she 
began to scribble on an old envelope. “ Let me 
see — 

Its soaring columns carved in mist 
With tender flush of sunrise kissed. 

No, it will be better to have it a moonlight 
effect. Ah ! now I have it,” and her fingers 
flew faster. 

Hurry, Tib, or, better, leave it for another 
time,” said Winnie. ‘‘ Here is Tribolo with his 
gondola, come to take us for our afternoon 
trip.” 

Tib dropped her poem and hastily packed up 
her sketch-box and followed Winnie. 


34 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“ Well, what did you make out of the im- 
possible stylobates and architraves Winnie 
asked an hour later. 

“ I don’t quite remember. 1 must have 
dropped the paper in the canal,” Tib replied. 
“ It is of no consequence ; I did not succeed 
very well.” 

But the ‘‘ elderly English architect” (who, by 
the way, was neither elderly, nor an English- 
man, nor an architect, but the young man who 
had listened to their nonsense that memorable 
Thursday), this mistaken and mistaking indi- 
vidual thought differently when, in the quiet 
of his own room, his servant handed him his 
volume of Ruskin, and he found the scribbled 
envelope between its leaves. 

What sentimental young person has been 
writing me poetry?” was his first remark. 

Really, a very romantic proceeding to tuck it 
inside my favorite book, but forward, my dear, 
decidedly forward. Your governess should 
look after you better.” And then he read the 
poem and elevated his eyebrows. “Not writ- 
ten to me exactly, after all, but in answer to 
my request that some one would show Ruskin 
that the Renaissance is as poetic as the Gothic. 


FIRST DAYS IN VENICE. 


35 


Rather cleverly managed, too, but self-conscious. 
She must have felt that it was good, or she 
would not have offered it for my admiration. 
Yes, here is her name on the other side of the 
envelope— Miss Winifred De Witt, in a very 
manly hand, not hers. A pretty name— Amer- 
ican probably, and I have pleasant memories of 
America, and have met many intelligent Amer- 
ican girls, and some with lovely faces ; but, un- 
happily, graces of mind and feature are not 
always found together. Now, if that girl with 
the Madonna face that 1 saw at the Waites’ 
studio Thursday afternoon had been capable of 
writing something like this ! But, instead, 
what a stream of idiotic maundering poured 
from those perfect lips ! The woman who wrote 
this is probably a fright to look . upon, and yet 
she must have had some appreciation of beauty 
both in art and nature. ” 

Once more he read Tib’s lines with pleas- 
ure : 

“ Like some Greek temple pure and grave 
With pediment and architrave, 

And sculptured columns soaring high 
Against the solemn, starlit sky. 

The mountain with its dome of snow 
Lifted its perfect portico.” 


36 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“The law of compensation is a cruel one,” 
he thought. “Here is a mind with which I 
am in sympathy. She loves Renaissance archi- 
tecture, and all her metaphors are correct. 
That argues cultured taste, education, travel. 
She expresses that taste in acceptable terms, 
which argues more education, and, alas ! age, 
also a certain ability which comes from prac- 
tice. She is doubtless an elderly penny-a-liner, 
and I shall recognize this poem some day in the 
pages of the Ladies' Domestic WeeTcly. This 
reasoning from circumstantial evidence, which 
Sherlock Holmes has reduced to an exact sci- 
ence, has its drawbacks : it effectually destroys 
all our illusions.” 

The young man’s face was a pleasant one 
while those thoughts chased each other in his 
idle fancy ; but suddenly a cloud crossed it, 
and he dashed the poem into a drawer of his 
desk, and set himself resolutely to some liter- 
ary work upon which he had been engaged. 
“ What business have I,” he asked himself, 
“ to indulge in foolish speculation about any 
woman —I who have such a heritage of disgrace 
that I can never marry, but who have sufficient 
consolation in the love of my mother and in 


FIRST DAYS IN VENICE. 


37 


this absorbing work which I have set myself to 
do, for the sake of Venice — Venice whom I 
have made my only sweetheart, and whom I 
shall make to be known and loved by others as 
I love her 


CHAPTER lY. 


THE CLOSED DOOR — SKETCHING TRIPS — A GHOST. 


mmE had at last 
succeeded in per- 
suading Tib that 
ten different stu- 
dies of the same 
view of the Salute 
were enough to 
give to that par- 
ticular buildiuj 
when all 
still lay unex- 
plored, and, with 
Adelaide as guide, 
they had visited the chief points of interest and 
had settled down to a daily gondola sketching 
trip. Their gondolier, Tribolo — so called, he told 
them, on account of his tribulations — had such 
a gentle, appealing look of melancholy that 



Venice 


THE CLOSED DOOR— SKETCHING TRIPS. 39 


they had not been able to resist, and they had 
engaged him for the season, though his prices 
were higher and his gondola older than those of 
the other gondoliers. As they were returning 
from one of their expeditions soon after this 
arrangement had been entered upon, Tribolo 
brought them back by way of a number of tor- 
tuous and narrow side canals. Just before they 
flashed into the sunshine of the Grand Canal 
they passed a gateway or doorway which had 
formerly opened upon a narrow sidewalk that 
ran along by the canal, but was now filled in 
with great blocks of rough stone. It was alto- 
gether a very picturesque bit, for there was a 
carved head on the keystone of the arch, and a 
vine from the neighboring garden had clam- 
bered over the wall and drooped over the stones, 
as though Nature, too, were striving to close 
the doorway. Tribolo rowed slowly, for he 
fancied that the girls might like to sketch the 
door some day ; and Tib called to him to stop, 
and scrutinized it intently. But it was not be- 
cause of its capabilities in suggesting a water- 
color. Where have I seen a xucture or read a 
description of this door ?” she said reflectively ; 
and then, turning to Tribolo, she asked, Is 


40 


WITGU WINNIE IN VENICE. 


there any legend connected with the walling up 
of this door 

do not know, signorita,” the gondolier 
replied ; “ but I have heard others say that the 
place is haunted ; that at night phantom gon- 
dolas arrive, and the ghosts pass right through 
the wall.” 

‘‘Yes,” Tib assented eagerly, “ I have heard 
so too ; but where?” A dip of the oar, and 
they turned the corner, and found themselves, 
to their surprise, in front of their own palazzo. 
“ Why, it is our own house !” Tib exclaimed. 

“ I think not, ” Winnie replied. “ Very like- 
ly it belongs to one of the buildings back of 
our jjalace. If it were a part of our house, we 
would have windows overlooking the garden.” 

They did not pass the door for many days 
after this, for the Grand Canal became for a 
time their favorite sketching ground. Every 
morning Tribolo would row them up its sweep- 
ing, S-shaped curve, stopping at some point of 
vantage opposite one of the older palaces, where 
they could sketch its lovely fagade. Some- 
times, when no opening side canal or sheltered 
corner conld be found where she could make 
her drawing from the gondola, a window could 



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TUE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHINO TRIPS. 41 


be hired for a few hours in some apartment 
placarded ‘‘ To Let'’ opposite a coveted view, 
and so her set of palace fronts grew every day 
more complete. 

While thus engaged, Winnie would read 
aloud from guide-books and histories the stories 
of the old buildings which Tib drew, so that 
they bad a fair idea of the dates when they 
were built, of their different styles of architec- 
ture, and of the histories of the different fami- 
lies who had occupied them. 

They found that even so far back as 1495 the 
Grand Canal had deserved its name. Philippe 
de Comynes, at that time the French ambassa- 
dor, thus chronicled his impressions : 

“ They led me along the Canal Grant, which 
is very large. Galleys pass through it, and one 
sees ships of four hundred tons’ burden near 
the houses. And I believe it to be the most 
beautiful street in all the world, and the best 
built, and goes the length of the city. The 
houses are very large and high, of good stone, 
and the ancient ones are all painted ; the 
others, made since a hundred years, have the 
fronts in white marble which comes from Istria. 
It is the most triumphant city that I have seen. 


43 


WITCH WINNIE' IN VENICE. 


and the most wisely governed, and where the 
service of God is most solemnly rendered.” 

If Comynes could thus praise the Canal in 
his time, it has grown even more beautiful 
since a third style, that of the Renaissance, has 
sprung up amid the palaces of the Byzantine 
period and the pure, fanciful Gothic the 
point-lace of architecture’ ’). 

These three orders, the Byzantine or Arab, 
the Lombard or Gothic, and the Classical or 
Renaissance, mingle in the Ducal Palace. It 
is, as Ruskin calls it, the central building of 
the world.” On the Grand Canal, however, 
they are to be traced distinctly in each sepa- 
rate, perfect palace, each beautiful after its 
own kind. 

The girls’ favorite course, when they wished 
simply to make a gondola trip for the sake of 
the enjoyment of the ensemble y was from their 
own hotel to the Palazzo Yendramin, near the 
railroad station. It was the path by which 
they had entered Venice, the trip taken by the 
most hurried of tourists, and the one which 
of all others gives most of beauty and inter- 
est at every 'dip of the oar. Hopkinson Smith, 
with his sensitive artist’s eye and the skilled 


THE CLOSED DOOR— SKETCHING TRIPS. 43 


touch of a word painter, has best described 
it : 

‘‘ Nowhere else in the wide world is there 
such a sight — a double row of creamy white 
l')alaces tiled in red and topped with quaint 
chimneys ; overhanging balconies of marble, 
fringed with flowers, with gay awnings above 
and streaming shadows below ; two lines of 
narrow quays crowded with people flashing 
bright bits of color in the blazing sun ; swarms 
of gondolas, barcos, and lesser water-spiders 
darting in and out ; lazy red- sailed luggers, 
melon-loaded, with crinkled green shadows 
crawling beneath their bows, while at the far 
end, over the glistening highway, beaded with 
people, curves the beautiful bridge — an ivory 
arch against a turquoise sky.” 

Our young artists never tired of this beauti- 
ful panorama, and agreed that the reproduction 
of its beauties gave opportunity for as many 
centuries of art work as had been required for 
their creation. They studied the buildings 
from a historical point of view, flrst visiting 
and sketching the few older and more ruinous 
j)alaces, and finding them picturesque and color- 
ful in their decay. While the later buildings 


44 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


could receive ample justice from black and 
white drawings, and even from i)liotograplis, 
the charm of these ancient palaces could only 
be painted, for the chief characteristic of the 
Byzantine architecture, like that of the Orient 
from which it is derived, is color. The exteriors 
of these houses had been, ornamented with tiles 
and with columns of colored marbles. 

With Buskin as a guide, the girls discovered 
a group of old Byzantine palaces near the 
Rialto mentioned in his Appendix to the 
‘‘ Stones of Venice.” All of these Byzantine 
palaces were formerly encrusted with mosaics. 
Their columns were generally purple porphyry 
or of green serpentine, and in their wealth of 
color they presented a contrast to the white 
marble of the Grothic and the Renaissance 
period. It was of these Byzantine palaces that 
Rogers wrote : 

“ By many a pile in more than Eastern pride, 

Of old the residence of merchant kings, 

The fronts of some, though time had shattered them. 
Still glowing with the richest hues of art.” 

Very sad is the present condition of some of 
them, not unlike that of the Fondaco dei Turchi 
when Ruskin saw it. Ruskin’s description of 


THE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHING TRIPS. 45 


this famous building, which in the tenth cen- 
tury was the warehouse and exchange of Turk- 
ish merchants, seemed to the girls the most elo- 
quent word picture they had ever seen of the 
degradation of ruined grandeur : 

‘‘It is a ghastly ruin, whatever is venerable 
and sad in its wreck being disguised by at- 
tempts to put it to present uses of the basest 
kind. The covering stones have been torn 
away like the shroud from a corpse, and its 
walls, rent into a thousand chasms, are filled 
and refilled with fresh brick-work, and the 
seams and hollows choked with clay, and 
whitewash oozing and trickling over the mar- 
ble. Soft grasses and wandering leafage have 
rooted themselves in the rents, but they are not 
suffered to grow in their own wild and gentle 
way, for the place is in some sort inhabited : 
rotten partitions are nailed across its corridors, 
and here and there the weeds are indolently 
torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to strug- 
gle again into unwholesome growth when the 
spring next stirs them.” 

It was while Tib was making a water-color 
study of the interior court of just such a dilapi- 
dated Byzantine palace that she was aware of 


46 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


the presence of a restless young man, who dart- 
ed in and out of the doorway, ran up and down 
the staircases, and thrust his head now over 
one balcony and now through an arch, evident- 
ly seeking a good point of view from which to 
photograph the very bit which she was sketch- 
ing. He carried his easel from spot to spot, 
but at length attempted to set it ui) behind Tib 
and to take the view from over her head. See- 
ing that her camp stool had been placed too 
near the wall to give him sufficient room, Tib 
obligingly moved aside, or attempted to do so ; 
but the young man, in an agony of polite re- 
monstrance, held her easel in place, assuring 
her that it did not discommode him in the least. 

In his nervousness he first took a photograph 
of the easel, and when Tib assured him that 
this must be the case, he tried again. 

I am sure that is perfect,” he said grate- 
fully ; “ two heads are better than one,” and 
then he recognized the Madonna face. In his 
agitation he overturned her sketch-box, and 
with a wild dash for the scattered tubes, 
bumped his head against hers. 

‘‘ Oh ! are they ?” Tib replied merrily ; and 
then checked her laughter as she saw that the 


THE CLOSED DOOR-SKETGIITNG TRIPS. 47 


shock had opened the shutter of his camera 
and ruined the negative just taken. 

A dogged look of determination had settled 
upon the young man’s countenance. lie would 
not be embarrassed by this foolish girl simply 
because she had a beautiful face, and he pro- 
ceeded to deliberately take two carefully limed 
photographs, and only discovered, when he de- 
veloped them, that they were both on the same 
plate, and his only success of the morning was 
a capital negative of Tib’s easel. 

‘‘Decidedly,” he said to himself, “ I prefer 
the literary genius who keeps out of sight to 
this pretty girl, who is always appropriating to 
herself the most desirable situations and get- 
ting in the way with miserable sloppy water- 
colors, and otherwise discomposing serious 
workers.” 

By which observation it will be seen that 
their paths had crossed before, and with dis- 
comfiture to the young amateur photographer. 
Winnie had been conscious of this ; for several 
days past she had noticed the photographic 
outfit in the different Byzantine palaces where 
they had gone to sketch. The owner had evi- 
dently either been photographing there or had 


48 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


sent his ax)paratus on in advance. Why was it 
that until now the photograi:)her himself had 
not appeared upon the scene ? On thinking it 
over, she had noticed an opening of doors, a 
mysterious bobbing in and out of a head, foot- 
steps coming and going. Such avoidance must 
be intentional ; he had found the ground occu- 
pied and had retired, until grown desperate of 
ever being able to achieve his own wishes, he 
had endeavored boldly but unsuccessfully to 
photograph the view which Tib was paint- 
ing. 

“ Where have we ever seen this young man 
she asked of Tib. His face is familiar, and 
yet I cannot remember where we have met 
him.” 

‘‘ I remember,” Tib replied ; while we were 
amusing ourselves with trying to reproduce the 
chatter of an afternoon tea at the hrst of Ade- 
laide’s receptions which we attended, he was 
standing by the piano looking over the music.” 

“ Of course ; with that malicious-looking 
girl.” 

I did not notice the girl, but I remember 
thinking ad the time that he would have been 
handsome if he had not looked so angry. It 


THE CLOSED DOOR— SKETCHING TRIPS. 49 


was a strange look to have on one’s face at a 
tea. ” 

He was angry at our talk, Tib.” 

‘‘ I would be very much mortified if I thought 
that he had heard it.” 

“ But he did, and misunderstood it delicious- 
ly. He thinks us a couple of rattle-tongued 
idiots ; and it serves him right for being so 
sloAV of comprehension. I never enjoyed any- 
thing more in my life.” 

‘‘ Winnie, is it possible that you ran on and 
let me disgrace myself in that way, knowing 
that this young man heard what we were say- 
ing ?” 

Certainly ; but he brought it on himself. 
I heard him tell the malicious girl that he in- 
tended to form an estimate of your mind by 
your next remark. I hope he found it compre- 
hensive enough. How, don’t spoil the joke by 
explaining everything the next time you see 
him.” „ 

A deep red spot burned on Tib s cheek. 
‘‘ Explain ! I never desire to see him again.” 

“ I do,” said Winnie to herself ; and if I do 
I will give him more food for reflection. He is 
better than a circus.” 


50 


WITGII WINNIE IN VENICE. 


They stopped at Professor Waite’s studio on 
their return that day, and he criticised their 
work. 

Why have you confined yourselves to the 
Byzantine palaces be asked. There is some 
such lovely tracery in the Gothic arcades.” 

‘‘We are coming to them,” Tib replied, “ but 
we want to take them chronologically. We 
are very much interested in Venetian history, 
and we are reading now about the Fourth Cru- 
sade. ” 

“ That is odd, very odd,” replied the profes- 
sor. “ I have a friend who is writing a book 
on the palaces of Venice ; he is treating them 
chronologically, too, and has promised to read 
his chapter on the Byzantine period to our 
friends next Thursday afternoon.” 

“We will surely be here,” said Tib. “ It 
will be a privilege to have some one direct our 
studies.” 

“ Yes, he is an interesting man ; and I want 
you to leave this water- color with me, for he 
was asking me the other day if I could recom- 
mend some artist who would assist him in 
illustrating the work. And bring pen-and-ink 
drawings of some of the Gothic tracery ; they 


THE CLOSED DOOR— SKETCHING TRIPS. 51 


will be just what he will want for the next 
chapters. Yon may have seen my friend, for 
he lives in this house and occasionally sits on 
the balcony.” 

‘‘Is he particularly fond of Renaissance 
architecture V ’ Winnie asked. 

“ Of all good styles ; and now I think of it, 
he did say that he had been made especially 
indignant by Ruskin’s injustice to the Renais- 
sance. He said, too, that he was so fond of 
the sunrise over the Salute that he never missed 
seeing it.” 

“ I was sure of it. It is our friend,” Winnie 
exclaimed enthusiastically. 

“ Then you have already met him f ’ 

“Not exactly ; but we know him all the 
same — a venerable man with gray hair and 
beard, with some such name as Hobbes or Dob- 
son. I see by your smile that I am right. ” 

Tib was not so sure, for the professor’s smile 
was quizzical as he said : “Be sure to be on 
hand early next Thursday, and you shall see 
for yourself how nearly you have guessed.” 

A few evenings later a very odd thing hap- 
pened. The girls were returning with Profes- 
sor Waite from a festa at San Marco ; the piazza 


52 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


had been illuminated, and it was a wonderful 
sight to see every outline of the architecture 
traced in little jets of flame. It was a moon- 
light night, and as they slipped homeward 
through the side canals, objects on the lighted 
side were vividly distinct while the shadows 
opposite were inky black. Tib was watching 
the Rembrandtesque effects with keen delight 
when she was awakened from her reverie by 
the professor giving an order to Tribolo. 

‘‘You know the little calle by the side of 
our palazzo 

“Yes, signor, the Calle del Espirito. No 
one takes it at night, for it is haunted.” 

“ Nonsense ; it is the nearest way home ; 
and see, there is a gondola ahead of us turning 
into it. You need have no fear, for we have 
company.” 

The felza or cloth top of the leading gondola 
had been removed, for the night was warm, 
and they could see that it had a single occu- 
pant, a man in a black cloak. The gondola 
kept steadily in front of them until it came in 
front of the walled- up door, when it paused in 
the> shadow! Tribolo slackened his speed and 
all watched. Suddenly the gondola shot out 


TEE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHING TRIPS. 53 


into the brilliantly lighted Grand Canal, and 
they saw that the man had vanished. 

‘‘ He went in at that door !” Tib exclaimed. 

“Impossible,” Winnie replied. “We saw 
when we last passed here that it was walled 
up.” 

Tribolo was trembling so that he could scarce- 
ly guide the gondola. “ Si, signorita,” he said. 
“ I told you, it is the spirit.” 


CHAPTER V. 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 


N this temple-porch, 

Old as he was, so near his hun- 
dredth year. 

And blind — his eyes put out — 
did Dandolo 

Stand forth, displaying on his 
crown the cross. 

There did he stand erect, invin- 
cible, 

Though wan his cheeks and wet 
with many tears, 

For in his prayers he had been 
weeping much ; 

And now the pilgrims and the 
people wept 

With admiration, saying in their 
hearts, 

' Surely those aged limbs have need of rest 1 ’ 

There did he stand with his old armor on. 

Ere, gonfalon in hand that streamed aloft. 

As conscious of his glorious destiny. 

So soon to float o’er mosque and minaret, 



ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 55 


He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships. 

Their lofty sides hung with emblazoned shields. 
Following his track to fame. He went to die ; 

But of his trophies four arrived erelong, 

Snatched from destruction — the four steeds divine. 
That strike the ground resounding with their feet, 

And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame 
Over that very porch.” 

Rogers. 

The next afternoon, as Winnie and Tib were 
returning from their sketching earlier than 
usual, in order to be in time for Adelaide’s re- 
ception, they were greeted by a hearty shout 
from an approaching gondola. 

It was John Nash, Stacey Fitz- Simmons’s 
friend and protege^ who had decided to return 
to America by way of Italy. 

“ You must come with us,” Winnie urged, 
after the first greetings. ‘‘ Adelaide will be 
glad to welcome you to Venice.” 

“Nothing would please me better than to 
see Professor and Mrs. Waite, whom I have 
not met since the summer the professor had his 
studio in the windmill at Shinnecock ; but you 
know I am as out of place at a recei)tion as 
Noah’s ark would be among these gondolas.” 

But John’s objections were quickly over- 


56 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


ruled, and he allowed himself to be taken a 
willing captive. 

‘‘I say,” he exclaimed, in admiration, as 
they approached the palace, ‘‘ you don’t mean 
to tell me that the Waites live there ! It must 
cost them a fortune. ’ ’ 

“ They and we have the second floor to- 
gether,” Winnie replied— “ the suite with that 
arcade of beautiful traceried windows. The 
house resembles the Ca’ d’Oro, and the apart' 
ments on the second story are more lofty than 
either of the others.” 

‘‘ That is odd,” John replied, for I should 
say, judging from the outside, that the height 
of the first and second floors was precisely the 
same.” 

‘‘Oh, no,” Winnie replied positively; “I 
have been inside the janitor’s apartment on the 
water-level, and it is not nearly so high studded 
as Adelaide’s. You are right, though, about 
the effect from the exterior. The only ex- 
planation is that there must be a little mez- 
zanine story ; but as many times as I have been 
here I have never noticed any landing or doors 
opening on 'the staircase until we reach Ade- 
laide’s apartment.” 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO, 57 


They stood within the high entrance hall 
now, and could see that Winnie was correct ; 
the staircase led straight up, without a stop or 
turn, to the level of the rooms occupied by the 
Waites. 

“ The mezzanine may have a staircase of its 
own communicating with an entrance at the 
side or back of the house,” Tib suggested; 
‘‘ or it may be arranged like our duplex llats in 
America, and be approached by a staircase 
leading down from Adelaide’s suite, or upward 
from the janitor’s.” 

‘‘That seems sensible,” Winnie remarked; 
“ but how clever of you to have guessed at that 
explanation !” 

“ I did not guess,” Tib replied. “ I seem to 
remember to have read somewhere that Vene- 
tian houses were arranged in that way.” 

“ It will be very easy to satisfy our curios- 
ity,” said Winnie. “There is the janitor; I 
am going to ask him.” 

The janitor, however, declared that he knew 
nothing of any intermediate story. He occu- 
pied the lower floor, and had gone over Profes- 
sor Waite’s apartment many times when it was 
vacant ; there was no mezzanine floor. But the 


58 


WITCU WINNIE IN VENICE. 


girls were not satisfied ; and after the man had 
retired into his den, John said : “I noticed, in 
the glimpse which I just had into that room, 
that not only was it much lower than this en- 
trance hall, but that the windows on the canal 
ran up to and apparently beyond the ceiling, 
for they had square mouldings across the top, 
while on the outside they are much taller and 
are arched.” 

“ Might not the arches over the top be sim- 
ply an ornamental feature of the fagade 
Winnie asked. 

‘‘No,” Tib replied ; “ there are rooms behind 
those arches, for I have several times of late 
seen a man seated within one of the arches. 
He seems to use the room as a sort of work- 
shop. Yes, I am positive now that he w^as 
printing iDhotographs at the window, for I saw 
him distinctly enough to recognize him, and it 
was the young photographer who had such a 
time in the courtyard where we were sketch- 
ing.” 

“ Then the janitor lied ; and yet he had the 
most innocent expression.” 

“ Perhaps he does not know of the existence 
of these rooms,” said Tib ; and her voice had a 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 59 


mechanical sound, as though she were reading 
something from a book. ‘‘ It may be a secret 
chamber. ” 

Winnie laughed heartily. Secret fiddle- 
sticks, Tib. You are as absurd now as you 
were clever before. Whatever put such a 
romantic idea into your head ? You must 
have been reading the ‘ Mysteries of Udolfo.’ ” 

Tib blushed ; she was usually very practical 
and unimaginative, and she was puzzled as to 
what could have suggested such a fancy, and 
quite ashamed of it. 

‘‘ It is a mystery, all the same,” said John 
Nash ; but Miss Smith’s suggestion that the 
rooms may communicate with Mrs. Waite’s is 
still to be investigated. She may be able to 
explain everything.” 

‘‘That is true,” Winnie assented, “for the 
young man that Tib speaks of was at one of her 
receptions. ” 

Adelaide greeted them, on their entrance, 
with an eager “ The contessa is here ; let me 
present you.” Then she recognized John 
Nash, welcomed him cordially, and handed him 
over to her husband, and led the girls toward 
the studio. 


60 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘ Who is the contessa ?” Winnie asked. 

She is the owner of this palazzo. She lives 
in the upper story and rents the more desirable 
apartments. She is charming— just what a 
contessa shonld be.” 

“ If she is the owner of this house, perhaps 
she or you can settle a question which is 
troubling us very much at present. Is there or 
is there not a suite of rooms between your own 
and the janitor’s floor 

‘‘ I can settle that ; there is no such suite, I 
am positive.” 

And no trace of any other staircase or en- 
trance to the house than the one on the Grand 
Canal V ’ 

‘‘ Of that I am not so sure. I only know 
that our apartment, which occupies this entire 
floor, opens on no other staircase. The con- 
tessa will tell you.” 

“ I shall never be able to muster up courage to 
speak to her,” said Tib, ‘‘ my Italian is so poor.” 

‘‘But Contessa Zanelli speaks English,” 
Adelaide replied, presenting Tib to a motherly 
lady with beautiful white hair, who greeted 
her in such perfect English that Winnie ex- 
claimed in surprise. 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 61 


It is little wonder,” the contessa replied 
with a smile, “ since it is my native language. 
1 am an American, and thongli I have not re- 
turned to the States but once since my mar- 
riage, I am proud of my country, and am glad 
to meet Americans. I have been so glad to 
have my son know Professor and Mrs. Waite, 
for hitherto the American women whom he has 
met have not been of the serious type which I 
most admire. We see plenty of beautiful girls, 
rich, aristocratic, gay, and even brilliant so- 
cially, but few earnest students, and my son is, 
first of all, a student.” 

Tib listened in a dazed way. She had for- 
gotten to ask about the mysterions mezzanine 
apartment ; she knew now why it had seemed 
quite natural to her that there should be such a 
secret chamber or suite of chambers — the reve- 
lation had come with Adelaide’s mention of the 
name Zanelli. This was Lolo’s mother, this 
Lolo’s home, with its queer little suite of rooms 
which he had discovered, and of which no one 
else knew. And Lolo himself — where was he ? 
The contessa was speaking now in reply to 
Winnie’s praise of Venice. ^^All Venetians love 
Venice intensely. My son has seen the princi- 


62 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


j)al cities of Europe, but none of tliem, for him, 
is so interesting or so lovely as liis native city. 
His love for her from boyhood has been a pas- 
sion. When a child I took him with me to 
America, and he said to me one day, ‘ Mamma, 
I can understand just how Jacopo Foscari felt 
when he came back to Yenice, after he was 
exiled, at the risk of his life. I feel as if 1 
could jump into the ocean and swim all the 
way to Venice.’ I do not know where he 
learned the story of Foscari — not from me cer- 
tainly ; but it made a great impression on 
him.” 

Tib felt like exclaiming : It was I who told 
Lolo about the Foscari.” She remembered 
how gayly they would applaud the tiddler 
crabs as they swam back to shore, and she was 
tilled with a great longing to see her little play- 
fellow and to talk with him about the old days. 
Winnie wondered that Tib was so silent ; but 
the contessa chatted blandly on, with all a 
mother’s sublime confidence that her son must 
be the most interesting subject of conversation 
to the world at large. 

‘‘ Angelo is writing a book on Venice, and 
Professor Waite has asked him to read one of 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 


63 


the chapters here this afternoon. He has had 
an idea that he can best tell the history of the 
city and the people by relating the stories of 
the houses. He has been taking photographs 
of the old palaces with which to illustrate his 
book. Ah ! here he is.” 

There was a little llutter of people settling 
into chairs, for Professor Waite had announced 
the reading. Tib sank upon the divan beside 
the contessa, but did not look up. She had a 
feeling which she knew would be disappointed, 
that her boy friend Lolo was standing there in 
his blue and- white jersey and the crimson 
purse- shaped cap. Winnie gave a surprised 
gasp and whispered : It isn’t the elderly Eng- 
lish architect after all, Tib. Look, it is that 
very superior young man whom we intrigued 
so successfully with our composite chatter, and 
who was so embarrassed with his photography 
in the old palace.” 

Tib looked up. The young man was not em- 
barrassed now. His face had a sad expression, 
but lighted with enthusiasm as he warmed to 
his subject. He described the birth of Venice 
-^at first only a seabird’s nest among the 
lagoons and a home for the fishermen of Padua ; 


64 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


then, as Attila swept down upon Northern 
Italy in 452, a refuge from the Huns, and a 
century later from Alboin and his Lombards. 
He told how those two invasions decided the 
fugitives to make of their hiding-place a per- 
manent home, and they returned no more to 
their ruined cities excei)t to gather from their 
former homes such precious marbles and col- 
umns which the spoiler had left behind ; and 
these, in love and reverence for their associa- 
tions, they built first into their churches and 
afterward into their homes. The people of Al- 
tino had settled upon one of the islands, which, 
in memory of the towers of their ancient home, 
they named Torcello, and their church was the 
first which was so decorated. This church was 
taken down in the tenth century, when the 
patriarch Orso, of noble and touching history, 
built the cathedral which still stands on the 
lonely island : but the marbles brought from 
Altino were again carefully built into its walls, 
and may be seen to-day. Such was the first 
and noblest Venice— a cluster of villages, strag- 
gling along the sides of each muddy, marshy 
island — no 'columns on the Piazzetta, and the 
great Piazza a piece of waste land. But already 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 05 


tile lagoon was full of boats, and Venice grew 
like a young xdant, like the quick-spreading 
vegetation of her own warm, wet marshes, day 
l)y day. 

“ A few in fear 

Flying away from him whose boast it was 
That the grass grew not where his horse had trod, 

Gave birth to Venice. Like the waterfowl, 

They built their nests among the ocean waves ; 

And where the sands were shifting, as the wind 
Blew from the north or south — where they that came 
Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, 

Rose, like an exhalation from the deep, 

A vast metropolis, with glistening spires, * 

With theatres, basilicas, adorned ; 

A scene of light and glory, a dominion 
That has endured the longest among men.” 

you ask me,” said the speaker, ‘‘how 
from the simple homes of these pioneer refu- 
gees there was soon developed one of the most 
beautiful styles of architecture, the most luxu- 
rious, costly, and ijerfect in its satisfying of 
artistic requirements, that the world has known ? 
how it happened that this style blossomed im- 
mediately into perfection, and that with the 
first financial success of the city there appeared, 
instead of the tasteless gropings after preten- 
tious display of a people newly rich, that ex- 


G6 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


quisite and ‘ fairest Yenice, a city of graceful 
arcades and gleaming walls veined with azure 
and warm with gold, and fretted with white 
sculpture, like frost upon forest branches ’ ? I 
reply that this beauty had a double origin, and 
sprang both from honor and dishonor. The 
Byzantine style, as its name suggests, was not 
invented in Yenice, but borrowed fully devel- 
oped from the East. The great peculiarity and 
beauty of Oriental architecture in distinction 
from all other architecture is its abundant use 
of glowing color. Yenetian travellers had seen 
the Eastern buildings, and were taken captive 
by their beauty. As Ruskin has written, ‘ the 
Yenetians deserve especial note as the only Euro- 
pean people who appear to have sympathized 
to the full with the great (color) instinct of the 
Eastern races. They, indeed, were compelled 
to bring artists from Constantinople to design 
the mosaics of St. Mark’s ; but they rapidly 
developed the system, and while the burghers 
and barons of the North were building their 
dark streets and grisly castles of oak and sand- 
stones, the merchants of Yenice were covering 
their palaces with porphyry and gold.’ But 
there was another and more practical reason 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 07 


why Venice adopted this style. All stone had 
to be brought from a distance, while brick could 
be manufactured at hand. It was easier to 
build the cathedral in its mass of brick, and then 
to encrust it with thin layers of precious mar- 
bles, and adorn it first with pillars and sculp- 
ture which they had brought from the ruins of 
the cities from which their forefathers had 
been exiled, and later which their merchant 
ships brought back from foreign ports, than to 
transport from inland quarries huge blocks of 
coarser building stone in such quantity as 
would be needed to build so large an edifice as 
St. Mark’s. So the cathedral of San Marco 
was built and was consecrated in the eleventh 
century in the dogeship of Vital Falier, and 
Venice may well love and be proud of San 
Marco. Walk through the Piazza, whose 
arches, as Puskin has said, seem struck back, 
leaving the great square open in a kind of awe, 
and look upon that vision which he so well de- 
scribes : ‘ A multitude of pillars and white 
domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of 
colored light ; a treasure heap it seems, partly 
of gold and partly of o]3al and mother-of-pearl, 
hollowed beneath into five great vaulted 


68 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with 
sculpture of alabaster clear as amber and deli- 
cate as ivory, sculpture, fantastic and involved, 
of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pome- 
granates, and birds clinging and fluttering 
among the branches, all twined together into 
an endless network of buds and plumes ; and 
in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels 
sceptred and robed to the feet and leaning to 
each other across the gates. And round the 
walls of the porches there are set pillars of 
variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and 
deep green serpentine spotted with flakes of 
snow, and marbles that half refuse and half 
yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, their 
bluest veins to kiss : and above them, in the 
broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language 
and of life, and above these another range of 
glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches 
edged with scarlet flowers — a confusion of de- 
light, amid which the breasts of the Greek 
horses are seen blazing in their breadth of 
golden strength, and the St. Mark’s lion lifted 
on a blue fleld covered with stars, until at last, 
as if in (Ecstasy, the crests of the arches break 
into a marble foam and toss themselves far into 



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ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 69 


the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculp- 
tured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido 
shore had been frostbound before they fell and 
the sea nymphs had inlaid them with coral and 
amethyst.’ Alas ! the beauty which the great 
word painter describes is not all of that early 
and innocent period. We had become accus- 
tomed to build from ruins, to inserting older 
fragments into modern buildings, and Ruskin, 
with all his admiration, does not gloss the 
truth. The practice which began in the affec- 
tions of a fugitive nation was prolonged in the 
pride of a conquering one ; and beside the 
memorials of departed happiness were elevated 
the trophies of returning victory. The ship of 
war brought home more marble in triumph 
than the merchant vessel in speculation, and 
the front of St. Mark’s became rather a shrine 
at which to dedicate the splendor of miscel- 
laneous spoil than the organized expression of 
any flxed architectural law or religious emotion ! 
And not the cathedral alone, for if the Crusaders 
could satisfy their consciences with the plea that 
they were stripping the infidel for the glory of 
the Church, it was but a step farther to carry 
the excuse for such robbery to the enrichment of 


70 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“ ‘ the lofty walls 

Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, 

Whose porphyry pillars and whose costly fronts 
Fraught with Orient spoils of many marbles, 

Like altars ranged along the Grand Canal, 

Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed. ’ 

‘‘Seem, did I say?” said the speaker; 
“ nay, are ; for these Byzantine palaces, as 
well as the noble columns of the Piazza and the 
bronze horses above the portals of San Marco, 
were direct trophies of the Fourth Crusade, 
which had its inception in high and holy en- 
thusiasm, and was ’adorned by many a deed of 
valor and self-sacrifice, devotion to religion and 
to country, but which, alas ! though these high 
motives led at the outset, degenerated, through 
the very desire of enriching and beautifying 
Venice, into a mere piratical expedition, so that 
these beautiful monuments witness forever to 
her shame as well as her glory. Better that 
these beautiful statues, pillars, mosaics, had 
remained in Constantinople to decorate the 
harems and mosques of the infidel, rather 
than, as spoils of robbers, flaunt their beauty 
in our till then simple city, and introducing the 
Saracen style of architecture, bring with it cus- 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 71 


toms of luxury, arts, and learning banned by 
the Christian Church, and hitherto undreamed 
of by our people.” 

With a quick movement of his hand he 
threw back a long lock of black hair which had 
drooped over his forehead, shadowing it as he 
murmured the last words, and told with pride 
how the six French knights came to Venice as 
messengers of the Crusaders to arrange for the 
transportation of the army by sea to the Holy 
Land— for Venice was the carrying power of the 
world, and the expedition needed her ships. 
He read Geoffroy de Villehardouin’s own ac- 
count of the address which he made when bid- 
den by the Doge Enrico Dandolo to speak for 
the knights to the people assembled in the 
church of St. Mark’s. 

‘ Messieurs,’ said the French knight, ‘ the 
noblest and most powerful barons of France 
have sent us to you to pray you to have 
pity ui^on Jerusalem, in bondage to the Turk, 
and for the love of God to accompany us to 
avenge the shame of Christ ; and knowing that 
no nation is so powerful on the seas as you, 
they have charged us to implore your aid, and 
not to rise from our knees till you have con- 


72 WITGU WINNIE IN VENICE. 

sented to have pity upon the Holy Land.' 
With this, the six ambassadors knelt down 
weeping. The doge and all the people then 
cried out with one voice, raising their hands to 
heaven, ‘ We grant it, we grant it ! ’ And so 
great was the sound that nothing ever equalled 
it.” 

Venice had pledged to provide transport for 
four thousand five hundred cavaliers and thirty 
thousand footmen, with provisions for a year, 
for which the Frenchmen were to pay well and 
to send out a fieet of her own of fifty galleys. 
This was in the winter of 1201 ; it was nearly a 
year later when the expedition arrived in Ven- 
ice, and then the knights found that they had 
promised to pay the Venetians more than they 
could raise. The Venetians proposed that in 
lieu of the full price they should pause on their 
way and subdue Zara, which had rebelled 
against their rule. This was all that was in- 
tended at that time, for many of the Venetians 
had become Crusaders and were as eager as the 
French knights to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, 
while a stroke for their country on the way 
was not inconsistent with this high enthusi- 


asm. 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 73 


Angelo Zanelli read on from the quaint 
chronicle. 

‘‘ ‘ One day, upon a Sunday, all the people 
of the city, and the greater part of the barons 
and pilgrims, met in San Marco. Before the 
Mass began the doge rose in the pulpit and 
spoke to the people in this manner : Signori, 
you are associated with the greatest nation in 
the world in the most important matter which 
can be undertaken by men. I am old and weak 
and need rest ; but I perceive that none can so 
well guide and govern you as I, who am your 
lord. If you will consent that I should take the 
sign of the cross for you and direct you, and 
that my son should, in my stead, regulate the 
affairs of the city, I will go to live and die with 
you and the pilgrims.” 

“ ‘ When they heard this, they cried with 
one voice, ‘‘Yes, we pray you, in the name of 
God, take it and come with us.” 

“ ‘ Then the people of the country and the 
pilgrims were greatly moved, and shed many 
tears because this heroic man had so many rea- 
sons for remaining at home, being old. But he 
was strong and of a great heart. He then de- 
scended from the pulpit and knelt before the 


74 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


altar weeping, and the cross was sewn upon the 
front of his great cap, so that all might see it. 
And the Venetians that day in great numbers 
took the cross. ’ ” 

Closing the book, Count Zanelli told how the 
fleet sailed in October, how Zara succumbed, 
and how, while the Crusaders were in the city, 
the young Prince Alexis, son of the dethroned 
Emperor of the Greeks, came to beg them to 
restore him to Constantinople, where his father 
lay imprisoned by an unnatural son who had 
usurped the throne. The purpose of the Cru- 
sade was deflected still more, for the fleet sailed 
at once for Constantinople. 

This was Dandolo’s hour. Apart from, any 
enthusiasm which he may have felt for the lit- 
tle prince, he could not have failed to recognize 
the great advantage it would be to Venice to 
lay a masterful hand on Constantinople and 
dictate terms to the empire of the East. The 
count described Dandolo’s heroic bearing in the 
siege in Gibbon’s admiring words : 

“ ‘ In the midst of the conflict the doge’s 
venerable and conspicuous form stood aloft in 
complete armor in the prow of his galley. The 
great standard of St. Mark was displayed be- 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 


75 


fore him ; liis vessel was the first that struck ; 
and Dandolo was the first warrior on shore. 
The nations admired the magnanimity of the 
blind old man ’ (the Venetian chronicle says 
only ‘infirm of vision’). ‘On a sudden, by 
an invisible hand, the banner of the republic 
was fixed on the rampart, twenty-five towers 
were rapidly occupied, and by the cruel ex- 
pedient of fire the Greeks were driven from the 
adjacent quarter. ’ 

“From this point,” said the count, “ the 
glory ends, and the entanglement of mixed 
motives, sordid desires, and base personal am- 
bitions began. In midsummer, 1203, Constan- 
tinople was taken and the old king liberated ; 
but it presently transpired that his kingdom 
did not desire him or his younger son. He 
begged the Crusaders to remain to strengthen 
his rule, but in spite of their presence in the 
Bosphorus a revolution took place in the city, 
the young prince was murdered, and his father 
died of grief. Then the Crusaders besieged the 
city again and put it to the sword with terrible 
slaughter. ‘ The Venetians only, who were of 
gentler soul, ’ says Romanin, ‘ took thought for 
the preservation of those marvellous works of 


76 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


human genius, transporting them afterward to 
Venice, as they did the four famous horses 
which now stand on the fagade of the great 
Basilica, along with many columns, jewels, and 
precious stones, with which they decorated the 
Pala d’Oro and the treasury of San Marco. ’ 

‘‘ ‘ This proof of gentler soul was equally 
demonstrated,’ Mrs. Oliphant remarks, ‘ by 
Napoleon when he carried off those same bronze 
horses to Paris in the beginning of the century, 
but it was not appreciated by Italy.’ 

“ And what of Dandolo and the Crusaders, 
do you ask, after the taking of Constantinople ? 
Alas ! the original aim of the expedition seems 
to have been forgotten. Only a few of the 
knights, true to their first purpose, straggled 
on in little bands to Palestine ; the others elect- 
ed Baldwin of Flanders emperor of the East, 
and themselves lords and suzerains under him. 
Venice received large possessions in the East 
and a long list of Mediterranean islands. She 
was ready now to marry the sea. But Dan- 
dolo, who had dowered her with glory, with 
wealth, with beauty, and, alas ! with the shame 
of pillage, died in Constantinople and was 
buried with kingly honors in St. Sophia. Bet- 


ONJE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 77 


ter for V^enice if he had given her alone the 
memory of his valor directed to a single pur- 
pose, the service of the cross, with no thought 
of gain even for his country or the Church. 
Better for the honor of our city if there had 
been no ‘ trophies of his mighty deeds, ’ ‘ fraugh t 
with Orient spoils of many marbles, ’ no Byzan- 
tine palaces in Venice.” 

The speaker ceased, and for a moment a 
hush fell on his audience. Every one felt his 
earnestness and recognized that here was a 
son of Venice who loved her too intensely to be 
gentle with her faults. She must be perfect, 
this Venice of his adoration, all glorious 
within. 

To Tib there seemed in his sadness something 
very personal, as though he had some particu- 
lar cause to regret the Eastern conquests which 
gave to Venice so much glory in the eyes of an 
unreflecting world. Some ancestor of his must 
have taken part in this glory and shame, but 
not certainly in the robbery of Saracenic build- 
ings of their ornaments, for the Palazzo Zanelli 
was built in a later period and in the Gothic 
style. Suddenly there crossed her mind the 
memory of the bad man, the alchemist of 


78 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


whom Lolo had told her, who had practised 
his black art in the laboratory of the secret 
apartments, and had been carried from it to 
ignominious death. 

Perhaps the count referred to him when he 
spoke of “learning banned by the Christian 
Church.” She was not disappointed in the de- 
velopment of her old playmate. He had ful- 
filled the promise of his childhood, and was the 
same thoughtful, gentle spirit. Tib felt as if 
they might easily take up the old friendship, 
for they had each grown on parallel lines, and 
yet with this conviction of sympathy there 
came to her a strange feeling of shyness, a mor- 
bid shrinking from obtruding herself on his at- 
tention. 

She came out of her day-dream of the past to 
hear a buzz of conversation about her. John 
Nash was very enthusiastic. He was delighted 
with the essay and wished to ask a hundred 
questions of the essayist. 

“ I shall look up all these Byzantine houses,” 
he said ; “ and I am filled with a great longing 
to see the real Saracenic architecture which in- 
spired them. To do that I suppose I ought to 
go to India, which is impossible. I cannot even 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 


79 


afford to continue my trip to Constantinople 
and Cairo.’’ 

‘‘You might go home by way of Spain and 
see the mosque at Cordova and the Alhambra,” 
Winnie suggested, “ with the other beautiful 
examples of Arabian architecture at Seville. 
You have enough for a season’s study in the 
cathedral of San Marco here. It is the noblest 
specimen of Byzantine architecture I know of, 
and not, as many suppose, a copy of St. Sophia 
at Constantinople, but in many respects very 
different. ” 

Professor Waite had joined the count on the 
conclusion of his reading to thank and con- 
gratulate him. “By the way,” he remarked, 
“ I want you to meet some friends of ours— two 
young ladies, artists, who are much interested 
in the palaces of Venice, and are making 
studies of them. I have here some of their 
water-colors of bits of the older houses which I 
would like to show you.” 

To the professor’s surprise, the count, usually 
courteous, grew frigid. “ Excuse me, my dear 
sir ; but if you refer to the two young ladies 
sitting near my mother, do not trouble yourself 
to present me. I have already met them in a 


80 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


certain way ; and (forgive my rudeness) I have 
not time now to cultivate new acquaintances, 
nor am I greatly interested in the amateur 
efforts of artistic young ladies.” 

Others pressed up to meet the count, and the 
professor, nonplussed and displeased, had no 
opportunity to say more. As Tib was leaving, 
she handed him a package. 

“ Here are some pen-and-ink drawings,” she 
said, ‘ ‘ which I have been making of the Gothic 
palaces. I shall bring you more, and shall be 
very proud if your friend thinks them worthy 
to illustrate his book. Make any arrangement 
with him you see fit, but please let me be anony- 
mous. I would rather he should not know the 
name of his illustrator.” 

The professor, who had been slightly embar- 
rassed, was much relieved. “ Good !” he ex- 
claimed, ‘‘let the drawings be accepted or re- 
jected on their merits alone. My friend, who 
is otherwise unprejudiced, has a strange in- 
credulity as to the ability of women in art. It 
will be quite a triumph ; and I shall enjoy his 
discomfiture when he ascertains that these 
drawings have been made by a young girl. It 
may be an assistance in keeping up the incog- 


ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 81 


nito if I do not introduce liim to you this after- 
noon. ” 

‘‘ I would much prefer not to meet him,” Tib 
replied hastily ; but here is John Nash, who 
is quite eager to make his acquaintance.” 

John was accordingly led forward by the pro- 
fessor, and the two young men, of such widely 
different social stations and education, soon 
found that they had much in common in their 
admiration of the beautiful buildings of Venice. 

The count invited John Nash to take a gon- 
dola trip with him the next day, and they 
talked so long together that when John looked 
for Winifred and Tib, he found that they had 
slipped away. 


CHAPTER VI. 


ANGELO ZANELlTs SECRET. 

NGELO ZANELLI had two profound 
V causes for melancholy — one person- 
al, the other inherited. 
On his return to Venice 
from the trip taken to 
America in his boyhood, 
he had become absorbed 
in his studies, entering 
the University of Padua 
early, and remaining in it 
for several post-graduate 
courses. Returning again 
to Venice after the death 
of his father, he devoted himself to his mother 
and to the study of the history of Venice, a 
study which led him finally to the preparation 
of the work upon which he was now engaged. 

Angelo’s father had never told his wife the 
story of the alchemist ancestor, and until his 



ANGELO ZANELLF 8 SECRET. 


83 


death she had been ignorant of the existence of 
the mezzanine story. But when Angelo came 
back from Padua, and certain changes were 
made in the disposition of the rooms, he showed 
her the door behind the portrait and took her 
into the little rooms. To her everything seemed 
very simple. It was a doctor’s office, long un- 
used ; and she readily consented to its use by 
her son as a study and dark room for his 
photography. 

Widowhood had rendered the contessa averse 
to society, and they had rented the principal 
floor of the palazzo, with its grand banquet 
hall, once used for splendid entertainments, to 
Professor Waite as residence and studio, and 
the contessa and her son retired to the upper 
story. There was no communication between 
this apartment and the alchemist’ s rooms ; and 
so, rather than trouble Professor Waite by pass- 
ing so often through his studio, the count decid- 
ed to have the stone work taken out which had so 
long sealed the door on the side of the Canal del 
Espirito, though this was an act in defiance of 
the seal of the Church set upon it so long ago. 
When the attention of the girls had first been 
called to the door by Tribolo, it was in broad 


84 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


daylight, and they had seen that it was blocked 
with rough stones. But these had been re- 
moved before they passed that way again, on the 
night of the festa. The man whose gondola 
they had followed, and who had paused before 
the door, so deeply in shadow that they had not 
noticed that the wall had been taken down, 
was the count. Tribolo had taken him for the 
ghost of the old alchemist, and had imagined 
that he had passed through the solid stone — 
and, indeed, the appearance had been very un- 
canny ; and it was a long time before the girls 
discovered that the door had been opened, for 
Tribolo could not be persuaded to pass through 
the canal again. 

It so happened that the old janitor had never 
heard that the count used the suite of rooms 
or had opened the door. He knew, of course, 
of the existence of the apartment and the popu- 
lar story of its being haunted, but in his opin- 
ion it was a disgrace to be stoutly contradicted ; 
and so when questioned by the girls and John 
Nash he had denied its existence. In the 
mean time Angelo Zanelli found the rooms a 
very congenial retreat. He took his coffee in 
the early morning upon the balcony, and then 


ANGELO ZANELLFS SECRET. 


85 


left the house by the front door in his gondola, 
usually rowing himself, for he did not go far. 
He simply turned into the Canal del Espirito 
and fastened the gondola to the hitching-post 
before the alchemist’s door — for he found the 
seclusion of his ancestor’s laboratory very 
favorable to quiet writing, reading, and the de- 
veloping and printing of his photographs ; and 
so it became his habit every day to unlock this 
postern door and disappear mysteriously from 
the world. He used the old magician’s cabinet 
for his writing-desk, and for a time wrote on 
his book without interesting himself in the 
papers of the alchemist. 

One day, however, a yellow j^archment nailed 
to the interior of the cabinet door caught his 
eye. It was headed with a black cross and read 
in Latin as follows : 

To all to whom this paper may come : Be 
it known that this is a true account of the trial 
of Giovanni Zanelli, doctor of medicine and 
alchemist, before the Holy Office of the In- 
quisition, wherein he was convicted of in- 
troducing the plague into Venice, being bribed 
thereto by the Sultan of Turkey, and was 
charged with the concoction of poisons and 


86 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


the practice of alchemy and other heinous prac- 
tices. ’ ’ 

Filled with horror, Angelo read the paper to 
the end. It seemed that his ancestor had ac- 
quired much of his knowledge in the Saracen 
University of Toledo, where he had studied 
chemistry — at that time called alchemy. Con- 
vinced of the knowledge of the Saracen physi- 
cians, he pursued his travels to Eastern lands, 
and there made studies of the plague, and orig- 
inated ideas of his own as to the disease. Re- 
turned to Venice, he shut himself in his labora- 
tory, pursuing experiments in chemistry which 
were looked upon with suspicion by the Church 
— for his travels and studies among the infidels 
were well known — and he drew upon himself 
remark by dressing in semi-Oriental fashion 
and by wearing a full beard. 

He was charged, too, with manufacturing 
poisons for Caesar Borgia, and the charge was 
partly proved by portions of a correspondence 
which had passed between them. But the di- 
rect crime for which he was executed, and for 
which, if it was really committed, he richly de- 
served death, was for introducing and spread- 
ing the plague in Venice. The Holy Office 


ANGELO ZANELLFS SECRET. 


87 


attempted to make him confess under torture 
that he had received vast sums from the Sul- 
tan for committing this nefarious crime ; but 
this he denied to the last. It was, however, 
clearly proved, from the evidence of eye- 
witnesses, that he had obtained the blood of 
plague-stricken persons and had inoculated 
other patients with the same ; and this he did 
not deny, but brazenly asserted was an experi- 
ment with a view to their cure. The Holy 
Office could accept no such flimsy excuse as 
this ; and even to Angelo this revelation, com- 
ing before the announcement of the discovery 
of antitoxine, seemed proof conclusive of his 
ancestor’ s guilt. He was overcome with shame, 
and he did not attempt to read a diary, which 
he afterward discovered in a secret compart- 
ment of the cabinet, which had baffled the 
search of the inquisitors, who had burned all 
other papers, together with the fine medical 
library, and many Arabian manuscripts, in the 
auto-da-fe which consumed the body of the 
sorcerer himself. 

This was Angelo’s inheritance of shame ; but 
he had a more personal grief. Like a dream, 
indistinct in certain details, but wonderfully 


88 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


clear in others, he had always remembered his 
little playmate, the child who, without having 
ever seen Venice, loved it as much as he did, 
and knew so much more than he about its old 
legends and traditions. He had never cared for 
these old stories till she told them to him ; 
they had turned the current of his life and 
made him an ardent student of the literature 
and history of his country. As a child it had 
not occurred to him to write to her, but only 
to wait patiently until happy fate should bring 
them together again. When, as a youth, this 
method of communication did suggest itself, he 
could not remember her real name, only what 
they had decided it should be some day — Nel- 
lie Zanelli. Lately he had come across the sil- 
ver bonhonniere., the mate to the one which he 
had given her. He recalled the circumstances 
vividly, and at first it gave him pleasure, for 
he felt that as the name Zanelli was engraved 
on the box, she knew his name, and that this 
slender clew might some day bring about their 
meeting. But this feeling was speedily over- 
shadowed by a great dread. He remembered 
perfectly where he had found this strange 
double box, and as he opened his part and 


ANGELO ZANELLVS SECRET. 


89 


looked at the amber-like globules, a distrust 
glided, serpent-like, into his mind. He exam- 
ined the lid of the box with a magnifying- 
glass, for there seemed to be some inscription 
engraved within it. Little by little it came out 
with startling distinctness : This is the fa- 
mous Borgia poison. One pellet dissolved in 
wine will produce death.” He was so over- 
come with horror that he was almost paralyzed. 

This, then, was the farewell present which he 
had given his little playmate — a poison in the 
guise of innocent- appearing bon-bons, which, 
if taken by herself or by any one else, would 
result in certain death. Perhaps the child had 
long ago died, a victim to his boyish ignorance 
and carelessness. He wrote at once to his 
great-aunt, the sister of Captain Snyder, ask- 
ing what had become of the little girl who at 
the time of his visit was their nearest neighbor. 
He was partly relieved by her reply. The lit- 
tle girl was not dead. She had become an art- 
ist, and had lately visited her parents on Long 
Island previously to going abroad. This altered 
a resolve that Angelo had made to visit Amer- 
ica if Hellie was still alive, seek her out, and 
tell her of the dangerous character of the pres- 


90 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


ent which he had unwittingly given her. Nel- 
lie was somewhere in Europe ; bnt Aunt Eliza 
had neglected to give him her last name or her 
present address. For this he wrote, and for it 
he now waited with great impatience. Neither 
of these troubles— the long-inherited disgrace, 
which his father had known but had kept se- 
cret, hoping that the pain of its knowledge 
might be spared his descendants, nor this fear 
of an agency for evil placed by his own act 
near a sweet and innocent being whose mem- 
ory he cherished— did he feel that he could 
share with his mother. 

But he was not an adept at dissembling ; and 
she, watching him as mothers do, knew that 
her son had a secret grief or fear whose nature 
she could not guess, but which filled her with 
more alarm than a knowledge of the facts 
themselves would have done. It was some- 
thing which had made him declare very seri- 
ously that he could never marry, and which 
made him more and more a solitary and mel- 
ancholy man. And yet Angelo was not morose 
by nature, and sometimes his gay, sweet dis- 
position would flicker up like a flame through 
a charred log and dance brightly for a time, 


ANGELO ZANELLFS SECRET. 


91 


and he would tuck his mother’s arm within his 
OAvn, and placing her in his gondola, row her 
far out on the lagoons for a day of pleasure, 
and he would sing the Venetian songs merrily 
and echo the cries of the boatmen and fisher- 
men in pure boyish fun. But always, as he 
moored the gondola in front of the palace steps, 
fastening it to one of the decorated hitching- 
posts that sprout like asparagus stalks from the 
water, the gloom of the shadow fell again upon 
his face. Close to his heart, consumed by his 
gnawing anxiety as to the deadly work that 
the Borgia poison bon-bons might do, he carried 
the twin box ; and he had taken an oath, fool- 
ish and wicked, though prompted by a sense of 
justice, that if he should hear of a life lost 
through his childish fault he would take his 
own life in the same way as punishment and 
reparation. 

But with all his trouble, Angelo Zanelli was 
still a young man, and not unimpressionable. 
He had noticed the young American girls even 
before the luckless dialogue which they had en- 
acted for their own entertainment, and each 
time that he had met them sketching in the old 
courtyards the girl with the Madonna face had 


92 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


interested him more and more. He was angry 
with himself that this should be, that the 
witchery of a mere face should possess such 
power over him, when he had such conclusive 
proof of her frivolous mind. He had consis- 
tently avoided meeting her, always leaving his 
favorite morning haunt, the balcony opposite 
the Salute, as soon as he could hear the young 
ladies just inside their windows chatting over 
their breakfast. He even congratulated him- 
self on the rudeness with which he had declined 
Professor Waite’s offer to present him, but for 
all this the sweet young face would persist in 
haunting his thoughts. To interest himself 
actively in some one else, he had taken upon 
himself to act as guide to John Nash, and pro- 
ceeded to introduce him to all his favorite nooks 
in Venice. John was appreciative, quick, and 
artistic to his finger-tips. It was a pleasure to 
enlighten his ignorance. He was impressed by 
the colorful harmony of San Marco, but he per- 
sisted obstinately in enjoying quite as much 
the delicate tracery of the Venetian Gothic ; 
and when Professor Waite handed the count a 
set of pen-and ink drawings of the fagades of 
Gothic palaces, and remarked that they were 


ANGELO ZANELLl'S SECRET. 


93 


offered as illustrations for liis book by a young 
artist who wished to be nameless, he at once 
concluded that they were by John Nash. 

“ They are admirable,” he said as he glanced 
them over, ‘‘ and I think I can guess who drew 
them.” 

“ Then do not disclose your suspicions to the 
artist,” the professor replied, ‘‘but carry on 
all negotiations through me. It may seem 
strange to you that such modesty and sensi- 
tiveness can exist hand in hand with such tal- 
ent ; but this is the condition on which they 
are submitted.” 

When, later, Angelo Zanelli looked the 
drawings over more carefully, another point 
struck him, which seemed to prove that they 
had been made by John Nash. It was John’s 
familiarity with each of the palaces represent- 
ed. This was quite natural, for he had accom- 
panied the girls on a number of their sketching 
excursions, and had talked over the buildings 
with them as they met at the hotel. 

The count had laid the package of drawings 
aside, and had not examined them closely until 
Professor Waite recalled them to his memory a 
week later by presenting him with another set. 


94 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


He was both surprised and delighted, and he 
could not imagine why John should wish to 
make a secret of their authorship, especially as 
it seemed to the count so very apparent. Here 
in the second set were the fagades of palaces 
which he had recommended to John (and to 
which the faithful fellow had immediately 
guided Tib). The first set was made up entire- 
ly of palaces on the Grand Canal, to which every 
gondolier convoys the tourist, but those of the 
second week he was sure could not have been 
discovered by a new-comer without his direc- 
tion. It was very foolish for John to insist on 
his incognito, and it was almost more than the 
count could do to respect it. 


CHAPTER VIT. 


THE GOTHIC PALACES. 


^MONGr the Gothic pal- 
aces which Tib had 
drawn, there were 
none whose details 
she had copied with 
more fidelity and affec- 
tion than the little Pa- 
lazzo Contarini, whose 
upper stories are shown 
at the head of this chap- 
ter. Beside this she had 
sketched the Ca’ d’Oro, 
the Giustiniani, the Foscari, with parts of 
several others. And as these are the build- 
ings which first fascinate the eye and win 
the heart of every visitor to Venice, a word of 
description may not be out of place. 

The Ca’ d’Oro, or Casa Doro, so called either 
from its gildings or because it once belonged to 



96 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


the Doro family, is one of the most fascinating 
of the Moorish-Gothic palaces, and it shows 
best the transition from the Byzantine to the 
Gothic style, combining as it does many fasci- 
nating features of both. 

The fronts of the old Byzantine palaces, as 
illustrated in the Fondaca dei Turchi, consisted 
of two long arcades of arches ; but in the Gothic 
the central portion only was open, while these 
arched spaces were contrasted by solid walls on 
either side, framing the ornate openings and 
giving an effect of more solidity to the entire 
building. The Ca’ d’Oro has only one of these 
solid wings, as the building was never finished ; 
but this slight irregularity added the charm of 
waywardness and capricious picturesqueness to 
this radiant, fairy-like structure, and perhaps 
this very inconsistency has caused it to be de- 
nominated “ the embodiment of the feminine” 
among the more dignified and manly Renais- 
sance palaces. The metaphor might be carried 
still further, and the query raised whether the 
graceful, wayward bride were quite happy in 
her association with her heavier and somewhat 
pompous companion, a Renaissance palace now 
turned into a hotel. The Ca’ d’Oro has suffered 



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THE GOTIIIG PALACES. 


97 


much from neglect and restoration. Its interior 
staircase, said to have been the most interesting 
of its kind in Venice, was broken up and sold 
for waste marble. But through all its vicis- 
situdes (still like a noble -hearted woman) it has 
preserved its cheerful character— elegant, noble, 
gay. Tib was sure that there never were skele- 
tons in its closets or festering corpses buried 
beneath its pavements. Only pure and lovely 
ladies, like the originals of Rosalba Carriera’s 
pastels, leaned over those lace-like balconies ; 
only honorable as well as debonair noblemen 
walked in those beautiful corridors. The pal- 
ace has such a bright and happy look that 
nothing evil or sinister could make its home 
here. 

And yet Tib found that one of the saddest 
tragedies of Venice brought ruin to two noble 
houses whose homes were palaces of this same 
lightsome, V enetian- Gothic architecture. These 
two palaces, the Contarini and the Ca’ d’ Oro, 
were among the first which she drew. Perhaps 
it was princix)ally from association, but Tib 
loved the little jewel-box Contarini palace quite 
as much as the more admired Ca’ d’Oro, for it 
was from this exquisite little building that a 


# 


98 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


daughter of that house was rowed in the bucen- 
taur or state gala barge to her marriage wdfch 
the unfortunate Jacopo Foscari, while a bridge 
of boats was thrown across the Grand Canal for 
the bridegroom and his retinue of three hun- 
dred horse, and tournaments were held for 
three days in the Piazza of San Marco. 

This was the story which had caught her 
childish fancy, and she drew with infinite pa- 
tience and with real love the fanciful whorls 
of the balcony, which reminded her of fern 
fronds and other convoluted forms of leaf 
unfolding, rather than the geometrical frost 
crystals of quatrefoils and trefoils repeated in 
the Ducal Palace and In the stately house of 
the Foscaris. This design, copied again and 
again in the palaces built shortly after the 
Ducal Palace, seemed a little mechanical at last, 
and in its paucity of invention reminded her of 
the ease with which Lolo stamped quatrefoils 
and trefoils in the sand with his tin cake-cut- 
ter. But it was an argument for the inherent 
beauty of these simple forms that she never 
really w'earied of them even in their multifa- 
rious repetition. The Foscari palace, too, the 
same that was built during the glorious doge- 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


99 


ship of the elder Foscari, to conform with the 
growing state of his house, was so dignified, so 
in keeping with the upright character and 
splendid ability of the man who ruled Venice 
during her most brilliant period, and bore his 
loss of oflSce with such nobility that it reflected 
disgrace only upon the enemy that planned it, 
that Tib inclined her head with involuntary 
reverence each time that her gondola passed it. 
She remembered how the old doge had endured 
his son’s sentence, counselling him to submit to 
the punishment decreed by Venice, and how, 
when deposed through the same malice which 
had occasioned the sufferings and death of his 
son, he had passed down the Giant’s Staircase 
with the same dignity that he had mounted it 
to his coronation. But the walls of his home 
could not shut out the pealing of the great bell 
announcing the accession of a new doge, and 
with that peal his great heart broke. Many of 
the gondola posts in front of the palaces were 
surmounted by the ducal cap, proclaiming that 
the building had been the home of a doge. 
Next door to the Foscari palace was another 
which shared this honor — one of the three pal- 
aces of the Giustiniani. There is a romantic 


100 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


legend connected with this family which has 
often been related. During one of the wars of 
Venice with the Greeks in the twelfth century, 
every known male member of the house was 
slain ; but the state, not willing that this heroic 
race should perish from the earth, remembered 
a young monk of the family in the Convent of 
San Niccolo on the Lido, and obtained a dis- 
pensation from the Pope to allow him to quit 
his convent, return to the world, and, marrying 
Anna Michieli, the daughter of the doge, found 
anew the ancient house. Later in life, when 
five sons had been given them (“ among whose 
descendants,” says the chronicle, ‘‘afterward 
flourished men of the highest intellect and great 
orators”) Niccolo Giustiniani and his wife part- 
ed, and gave the remnant of their lives to the 
cloister. 

In the seventeenth century the doge’s cap 
crowned the gondola post, and it was about 
this time that different descendants of the monk 
built the three Gothic palaces in the noblest 
site on the Grand Canal, whence, on one hand, 
you can look down to the Pialto Bridge, and 
on the other far up toward the Church of the 
Salute. Mr. and Mrs. William Dean Howells 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


101 


lived during tlieir last year in Venice in one 
of these magnificent buildings. Speaking of 
their housekeeping in the Palazzo Giustiniani, 
which Adelaide’s in the Palazzo Zanelli greatly 
resembled, he says : 

‘‘ If the furniture of the principal bedroom 
was somewhat scanty, its dimensions were un- 
limited. The ceiling was fifteen feet high, and 
was divided into rich and heavy panels, adorned 
each with a mighty rosette of carved and gilded 
wood two feet across. The parlor had not its 
original decorations in our time, but it had once 
had so noble a carved ceiling that it was found 
worth while to take it down and sell it into 
England ; and it still has two grand Venetian 
mirrors, a vast and very good painting of a 
miracle of St. Anthony, and imitation antique 
tables and armchairs. The last were frolicked 
all over with carven nymphs and cupids ; but 
they were of such frail construction that more 
than one of our American visitors was dismayed 
at having these proud articles of furniture go 
to pieces upon his attempt to use them like 
mere armchairs of ordinary life.” 

These four i)alaces — the Ca’ d’Oro, the Con- 
tarini, the Foscari, and the Giustiniani— Tib 


102 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


had drawn most lovingly ; but she also sketched 
a number of other Gothic palaces — the Hotel 
Danieli, formerly the home of the Nani Mo- 
cenigo family ; the Palazzo Morosini, the Palaz- 
zo Cavalli, with its carved lions looking a bit 
out of place in the glistening whiteness of its 
restoration among its time-discolored neighbors. 

After having become well acquainted with 
the Grand Canal, they found it a most fascinat- 
ing occupation to make tours of exploration in 
the smaller waterways, and Tribolo would row 
them through strange labyrinths, around sharp 
corners, and under shadowy bridges to see some 
pile of magnificence in ruins. They discovered 
one such on a narrow canal crowded by squalid 
buildings swarmed with children and with the 
very poorest people. They called it their pal- 
ace, and fancied that they owned it by right of 
discovery, until John Nash told them that this 
was Count Zanelli’s favorite palace, and one 
which he had especially advised him to make a 
sketch of, drawing his attention to the fact 
that Ruskin had also given the seal of his ap- 
proval to the Palazzo Bernardo by declaring it, 
‘‘after the Ducal Palace, the noblest in effect 
of all in Venice.” 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


103 


The count had indicated many walks which 
could be taken, for streets and squares are so 
connected by the network of narrow sidewalks 
which border the canals, and by the infinitude 
of bridges which cross them, that he who 
knows the city only by gondola has lost many 
of its most picturesque aspects. There was a 
noble door opening upon a little quay which 
she drew in detail, half expecting that the 
wicket, made for examination of the stranger 
who struck its ponderous fish-shaped knocker, 
might open and the porter order her to be gone. 
Instead of this, some children in the garden 
within climbed a cherry-tree that leaned over 
the wall and showered cherries upon her as she 
drew. 

They were not privileged to see the interiors 
of many of these private palaces ; but they 
knew that this was Venice’s grandest era, and 
they could form a good idea, from the decora- 
tions of the Ducal Palace, of what the beauty of 
these princely homes must have been. How- 
ells tells us of the grand ball-room of the Pisani 
Palace, w^here might have danced that Con- 
tarini who, when his wife’s necklace of pearls 
fell upon the floor in the way of her partner, 


104 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


the King of Denmark, advanced and ground it 
into powder with his foot, that the king might 
not be troubled to avoid treading on it. ” He 
tells, too, of the magnificent country-seat of 
the Pisani family at Stra, now with scarcely 
any addition to its splendor, an imperial resi- 
dence ; and the Pisani barge, a great gilded 
affair all carven outside with the dumpling 
loves and loose nymphs of the period, with 
fruits and flowers and what not ; and within 
luxuriously cushioned and furnished, and 
stocked with good things for pleasure- making 
in the gross old fashion. ” 

Grander than any of the private palaces, from 
which many of them were copied, the Ducal 
Palace compelled the most respectful admira- 
tion of our young artists. Riiskin calls it the 
central historical building of the world, since 
it unites all three of the principal styles of Yen- 
ice, is still chiefly and pre-eminently Gothic. 
Tib grew to admire it as much as she did San 
Marco. The long line of its pillars, springing 
like the stalks of lilies from the ground with- 
out bases, gave the impression of natural 
growth. The great rosy wall, cut at intervals 
by its simple windows, taught the dignity and 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


105 


repose of broad spaces unteased by ornament. 
She studied the capitals of the columns with 
her Ruskin in hand, and drew the Giant’s 
Staircase, trying to imagine how it looked dur- 
ing the coronation of a doge. She walked 
along the Riva dei Schiavoni in the direction 
of the Public Garden to obtain a view of the 
exquisite Bridge of Sighs spanning the canal 
between the palace and the gloomy prison. It 
was no matter that modern writers had proved 
that no one for whose misfortunes one should 
weep had ever been confined in those terrible 
dungeons — unless possibly her old hero, Jacopo 
Poscari. It was enough that he had lan- 
guished there after torture, and the guide 
showed them oubliettes— wells in the floor of 
the cells— into which victims might be plunged ; 
while there was truth in the tradition that the 
prison barge rowed all too frequently to that 
dark canal, in which rod and net were never 
allowed to be cast, lest it should reveal the 
dread secrets of the Council of Ten. 

In the Sala del Major Consilia, arranged in 
chronological order as a frieze above the other 
paintings, are the portraits of seventy-two of 
the one hundred and twenty doges. Every one 


106 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


pauses before tlie black space, in which the fol- 
lowing inscription takes the place of the cus- 
tomary portrait : 

“ This is the place of Marino Faliero, behead- 
ed for his crimes.” 

But the palace as a whole is lightsome and 
beautiful, the noblest civic building of the 
world. N o town hall of the N orth can compare 
with it for dignity or for gorgeousness of its in- 
terior decoration, for the great masters of the 
Venetian school can best be studied in its 
mural paintings. 

As they stood before Tintoretto’s stupendous 
work, The Paradise,” and Professor Waite 
explained the plan of its composition in con- 
centric zones, like the interior of a cupola, the 
figures of saints, angels, and glorified spirits 
rising toward the central and highest point, 
toward Christ and the Madonna, they were 
struck by the wonderful daring in conception 
and execution of this master, who could grouj) 
five hundred figures so intricately and yet so 
harmoniously. 

Buskin enumerates fourteen paintings in the 
Ducal Palace as specially worthy of attention. 
Indeed, he says that the multitude of works by 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


107 


various masters which cover the walls of the 
palace is so great that the traveller would better 
refuse all attention except to these fourteen, of 
which ten are Tintoretto’s. Of these he places the 
‘‘ Paradise” first. The girls studied the series 
with careful reference to the “ Stones of Venice,” 
for Ruskin certainly is Tintoretto’s best lover ; 
and the dashing genius could ask no better in- 
terpreter and apologist. 

Tib was interested by the four mythological 
paintings which occupy the angles of the Anti- 
Collegio ; the faded Bacchus and Ariadne,” 
which Ruskin assures us was once one of the 
noblest pictures in the world, and especially by 
the ‘‘Minerva and Mars,” which, strange to 
say, he does not mention. To Paul Veronese, 
with whom the great critic is not in sympathy, 
he still gives place in his list of masterpieces of 
the Ducal Palace for three paintings : the 
“ Euroi^a,” in the same room as the foregoing, 
the Venice enthroned on its ceiling, which he 
admits is “ one of the grandest pieces of frank 
color in the Ducal Palace,” and “ Venice” and 
the “ Doge Sebastian Vernier” in the Sala del 
Collegio, to which he gives high praise. This 
beautiful room, with its roof painted entirely 


108 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


by Paul Veronese, is a favorite one of Pus- 
kin’s, and he advises the traveller who really 
loves painting to ‘‘ pass the sunny summer 
mornings there again and again, wandering 
now and then into the Anti-Collegio and the 
Sala dei Pregadi, and coming back to rest 
under the wings of the couched lion at the feet 
of the ‘ Mocenigo,’ ” for ‘‘ he will not otherwise 
enter so deeply into the heart of Venice.” 

Tib felt that Puskin did great injustice to 
Titian in mentioning in this list but one of his 
paintings, The Doge Grimani Kneeling before 
Faith,” and that in terms of detraction, as a 
striking examx)le of his “ want of feeling and 
coarseness of perception.” 

There were other paintings not noted at all 
by the great critic which won her heart, and for 
a time the Ducal Palace drew Tib away from 
her architectural drawing. After wandering 
through its wonderful rooms, she declared to 
Winnie, I can content myself with drawing 
in black and white no longer. I must drop it 
for a time, for I am hungry for color and must 
paint. I want to copy a Titian. I will ask 
Professor Waite’s advice as to which one, and 
order a canvas at once.” 


THE GOTHIC PALACE. 


100 


They tapped at the studio door as soon as 
they reached home, and Adelaide greeted them 
with delight. 

I have just been to your rooms to call upon 
you with the Contessa Zanelli,” she exclaimed. 

‘ ‘ It is a great attention, for she goes out very 
little. She is very much pleased with you both, 
but she is especially in love with you, Tib ; and 
when she asked what part of America was your 
home, and I told her that you were born at 
some insignificant little place down on Long 
Island, she was greatly excited, and asked if it 
was Scup Haven, which is her own birthplace. 
I told her I thought that sounded like the 
name. How funny it would be if you should 
find that you are from the same place !” 

I have known it for some time,” Tib re- 
plied. I remember when the contessa visited 
her father fifteen years ago. I saw her fre- 
quently ; we were neighbors.” 

“ Then why didn’t you recall yourself to her 
when you met her here ? You are the most 
modest and least assertive little person I ever 
saw. She will like you all the better, though, 
for leaving her to make the advances. And 
she has made them, for she invites us all to 


110 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


take a gondola excursion with her to-morrow 
out upon the lagoons. We are to carry our 
luncheons and spend the entire day cruising 
among the islands. ” 

Winnie uttered a little shriek of delight, but 
Tib flushed and replied uncertainly, ‘‘ I am 
afraid I can’t spend the time. I want to begin 
my painting,” and she explained the longing 
which had come over her. 

“ Nonsense,” said the prof essor good natured- 
ly ; ‘‘ you must have your canvas stretched be- 
fore you can attack your Titian, and you can 
take your sketch-box with you. I shall do so, 
and we shall probably And some good out-of- 
door studies.” 

“Is her son going?” It was Winnie, not 
Tib, who asked. 

“ Of course,” Adelaide replied. “ We are 
to take our three gondolas. The count will be 
my escort. Mr. Waite will take Winnie, and 
Tib is to go with the contessa. You must not 
refuse, for it would offend her greatly. She 
has settled everything, provided for everything, 
and she is not a woman who enjoys having her 
plans set aside. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


P ROFESSOR WAITE had said that 
the contessa did not like to have her 
plans thwarted, and she was rarely 
called upon to undergo such an 
^ ^ experience, for destiny had been 

very kind to her. 
.- 4,,...; ., She adored her 
son, and he an- 
swered her affec- 
^ tion with filial 

5 devotion ; it was 

the aim of each 
to make the other 
happy ; an aim in which the son at least was 
perfectly successful. But in this particular 
plan of the gondola excursion the contessa had 
reckoned without her host, or rather with- 
out her principal guest. She had arranged it 
as a pleasant surprise for her son ; and lo ! 



112 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


when he was consulted he was not at all 
pleased. 

‘‘You must make your trip without me, 
mother,” he had said when she had informed 
him that she had invited the Waites and their 
young lady friends to spend the day upon the 
lagoons. “ I have promised to show the sights 
of Venice to a young American.” 

“Bring him with you,” suggested the con- 
tessa. 

“ He would not be an acceptable addition to 
the party. He is a rough diamond, not, I 
should judge, used to ladies’ society, though 
he is a very interesting fellow to me.” 

The contessa saw that her son was not to be 
persuaded, and wisely forbore persuasion. At 
the appointed time she called on the Waites, 
presented her son’s excuses, and the party set 
out in two gondolas instead of three, the con- 
tessa appropriating Tib to herself. The con- 
tessa’ s gondola was a luxurious one, cushioned 
and curtained daintily and fitted up with ’many 
ingenious little contrivances for comfort, more 
roomy than a carriage, with lockers for lunch- 
eon, for books, for sketching materials.^ with a 
warm hood for inclement weather, lanterns for 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


113 


gala evenings, and a fluttering awning that fans 
and shades on warm summer afternoons. 

The gondola has been best described by Hop- 
kinson Smith, who has used it for many sea- 
sons as his out-of-doors studio. How pictu- 
resquely he writes ! 

“ In my experience there is nothing like a 
gondola to paint from, especially in the sum- 
mer. Then all these Venetian cabs are gay in 
their sunshiny attire, and have laid aside their 
dark, hooded cloaks, their rainy day mackin- 
toshes— their felsi — and have pulled over their 
shoulders a frail awning of creamy white, with 
snowy draperies at sides and back, under which 
you paint in state or lounge luxuriously, drink- 
ing in the beauty about you. A cozy curtain- 
closed nest, a little boudoir with down cushions 
and silk fringes and soft morocco coverings, 
kept afloat by a long, lithe, swan-like, moving 
boat, bearing itself proudly with head high in 
air — alive or still, alert or restful, and obedient 
to your, lightest touch— half sea-gull revelling 
in the sunlight, half dolphin cutting the dark 
water. ” 

Tib settled herself luxuriously by the side of 
the contessa, who chatted most entertainingly. 


114 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


describing the different buildings which they 
passed. She had chosen a tortuous route 
through the northeastern quarter of Venice, 
their destination for luncheon a restaurant near 
the house that once was Titian’s home, and 
possessing from its terrace, where they would 
take their noonday repast, the same beautiful 
view across the lagoon of the Dolemite Alps. 
The part of Venice through which they thread- 
ed their w^ay before coming out on the northern 
shore is not visited by the hurried tourist, 
though it is dear to the heart of the artist and 
all lovers of the picturesque. The authors who 
have loved Venice most have each found it out 
and written lovingly of its humbler charms — 
for it is the quarter of the poor — and though 
you pass many a noble house, which has been 
the home of the illustrious of ages past, these 
palaces have now an air of aristocratic decay 
and a proud poverty which disdains alike as- 
sistance or pity. Each member of the party 
could refer to some writer who had sung the 
praises of this particular trip. It was Adelaide 
who pointed out that Hare was speaking of this 
northeastern quarter of Venice when he wrote : 
“ This excursion is one which gives an ad- 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


1J5 


mirable idea of the quiet bits of beauty in the 
side canals, of the marvellous variety of the 
palaces rising steeply from the pale green 
water, of the brilliant acacias leaning over the 
old sculptured walls, of the banksia roses fall- 
ing over the parapets of the little courts like 
snowdrifts, and of the tamarisks feathering 
down into the water.” 

Winnie had discovered that her favorite 
author, Dickens, loved this quarter of the work- 
men, and wrote of it : Floating down narrow 
lanes, where carpenters, at work with plane and 
chisel in their shops, toss the light shaving 
straight upon the water, where it lies like a weed 
or ebbs away before us in a tangled heax) ; past 
open doors, decayed and rotten from long steep- 
ing in the wet, through which some scanty 
patch of vine shines green and bright, making 
unusual shadows on the x)avement with its 
trembling leaves ; past quays and terraces, 
where women, gracefully veiled, are passing 
and repassing, and where idlers are reclining in 
the sunshine on flagstones and on flights of 
steps ; past bridges, where there are idlers, too, 
loitering and looking over ; below, stone balco- 
nies erected at a giddy height ; past plots of 


IIG 


WITCU WINNIE IN VENICE. 


garden, theatres, shrines, prodigious piles of 
architecture— Gothic- Saracenic —fanciful with 
all the fancies of all times and countries ; past 
buildings that were high and low, and black 
and white, and straight and crooked, mean and 
grand, crazy and strong ; twining among a tan- 
gled lot of boats and barges, and shooting out 
at last into a Grand Canal.” 

Their own course was in the contrary direc- 
tion. At almost the first turning after leaving 
the highway of the Grand Canal they came 
upon the beautiful door of the Palazzo Sanudo, 
a noble Gothic fourteenth-century palace with 
Byzantine cornices. This door is the most per- 
fect of its period in Venice, and illustrates the 
transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic 
period. They paused to admire its richly 
carved panels, and the professor pointed out 
the wicket or little door in the great one, for 
the examination of the stranger demanding en- 
trance, and its heavy bronze knocker in the 
form of a dolx)hin. There was a tempting 
garden at its side. Tib remarked that she 
thought Miss Thackeray must have intended 
to describe this part of their trip when she 
wrote this bit of word painting, which had im- 



A Venetian Door 








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ON THE LAGOONS. 


117 


pressed her so vividly that she was able to 
repeat it : 

Now it is a palace to let, with wooden shut- 
ters swinging in shadow ; now we pass the 
yawning vanlts of great warehouses piled with 
saffron and crimson dyes, where barges are 
moored and workmen strain at the rolling bar- 
rels. Now it is the brown wall of some garden 
terrace ; a garland has crept over the brick, and 
droops almost to the water ; one little spray en- 
circles a rusty ring hanging there with its 
shadow. Now we touch palace walls, and with 
a hollow jar start off once more. Now comes a 
snatch of song through an old archway ; here 
are boats and voices ; the gondolier’s earrings 
twinkle in the sun. A little brown-faced boy 
is lying with his brown legs in the sun on the 
very edge of a barge, dreaming over into the 
green water ; he lazily raises his head to look, 
and falls back again ; now a black boat passes 
like a ghost ; now it is out of all this swing of 
shadow and confusion that we cross a broad, 
sweet breadth of sunlight and come into the 
Grand Canal.” 

They moored their gondolas at the restaurant 
and followed the professor through a tangle of 


118 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


calles^ or narrow lanes, to the honse once occu- 
pied by Titian. They had better fortune than 
most tourists, for they were admitted, and saw 
a part of the garden which was so extensive 
and beautiful in Titian’s day, running down to 
the shore and having its own little wharf for 
the embarkation of its guests. Titian owned a 
large house, but only occupied the main upper 
stories, which had a loggia communicating with 
the garden by a stone staircase. The lower 
story had no doors or windows upon this gar- 
den, but fronted upon a side calle., and was oc- 
cupied by shops. The house has been much 
altered since Titian’s time, his noble studio cut 
up into small rooms, and its frescoes — pre- 
sumably by the hand of the master — at first 
whitewashed, then cleaned, taken down, and 
sold into England. Tib came later to have a 
greater interest in the garden, as she became 
better acquainted with the period during which 
Titian lived, and learned the associations con- 
nected with the spot. At this, her first visit, she 
knew only what Howells had written, and she 
agreed with him that it had ‘‘ an incomparably 
lovely and delightful situation. ” It looked out 
over the lagoon, across the quiet isle of sepul- 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


119 


chres, San Michele, across the smoking chimneys 
of the Murano Glass Works, and the bell towers 
of her churches, to the long line of the seashore 
on the right and to the mainland on the left, 
and beyond the nearer lagoon islands, and 
the faintly pencilled outlines of Torcello and 
Burano in front, to the sublime distance of the 
Alps shining in silver and purple, and resting 
their snowy heads against the clouds. It had 
a pleasant garden of flowers and trees, into 
which the painter descended by an open stair- 
way, and in which he is said to have studied 
the famous tree in the Death of Peter Mar- 
tyr.” Here he entertained the great and noble 
of his day, and here he feasted and made merry 
with the gentle sculptor Sansovino, and with 
their common friend, the rascal poet Aretino. 

After their visit to Titian’s house they 
lunched al fresco (out of doors) at the little 
restaurant on the Fondamente Nuove on deli- 
cious fish, a salad, black coffee, cheese, and 
fruit, and then their gondolas left the narrow 
canals and shot out upon the open lagoon. As 
they passed the cemetery island of San Michele 
they saw a boat funeral approaching. Si- 
lently it stole on its way, but it was difficult to 


120 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


imagine that the gondolas were other than 
pleasure boats like their own, for the island 
villages, white and vermilion, glittered merrily 
in the silvery blue setting, and there was noth- 
ing funereal in the scene except the crape-like 
scarf of smoke floating from the chimneys of 
the glass furnaces over the island of Murano. 
This as they approached was seen to be no 
badge of mourning, but a symbol of activity and 
prosperity. They paused to visit the churches, 
the Duomo, with its mosaic Madonna, and the 
Church of the Angeli to see the portrait of 
Doge Barberigo kneeling before the Virgin — 
one of the noblest of Giovanni Bellini’s can- 
vases— and then they went over the Salviatti 
Glass Manufactory. 

The contessa called their attention to the 
wonderful reproductions of the ancient mo- 
saics. 

An intelligent custodian showed them a large 
collection of exquisite imitations of the old 
Venetian glass in inflnite variety of twisted 
floral forms tinted with the marvellous colors 
of every gem — opal, ruby, aquamarine, emer- 
ald, milky mottled agate, and gold-flecked crys- 
tal. He showed them also a cabinet of antique 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


121 


specimens, very rare and valuable, from which 
these were copied. 

‘‘We have one cnp which bears your name,’’ 
he said to the contessa. “It is the Zanelli 
beaker, so called from a chemist of note, per- 
haps of your family, who, it is said, discovered 
how to mingle reactions in the glass, so that it 
serves as a detecter of certain poisons. Here is 
the cap.” 

He set before them a delicate glass of ordi- 
nary aspect, except that a green serpent was 
coiled about it, forming the handle with one of 
its convolutions, while its head was buried deep 
in the interior of the cup, as though thirstily 
endeavoring to drink its contents. Around the 
brim of the cup was an inscription in gold in 
Latin which Winnie translated : “1 die to pre- 
serve life.” 

The contessa started. “ That,” said she, “ is 
a motto painted over the laboratory door of an 
ancestor of my husband’s who was a physi- 
cian.” 

“ Then I am sure,” said Tib, “ that he must 
have been the inventor of this detective glass. 
Of what kind of poison does it announce the 
presence V ’ 


122 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘No one knows,” replied the custodian. 
“ The legend says only that if wine containing 
the celebrated poison of the Borgias is poured 
into this cup, the instant that it mounts to the 
little red tongue of the serpent the glass wall be 
shivered to atoms. No one knows of what the 
Borgia poison consisted. Possibly, too, the 
legend of the power possessed by the goblet is 
a mere fabrication.” 

“You could easily ascertain by experiment- 
ing with different kinds of poisons,” Tib re- 
plied, much excited. 

“ Yes,” admitted the custodian; “but it is 
hardly worth while to prove the truth of the 
tradition at the expense of shattering this beau- 
tiful specimen of antique glass. We are more 
interested in it as a work of art than in proving 
or disproving idle legends.” 

“ If this chemist Zanelli was really your an- 
cestor,” Tib said to the contessa as they left 
the manufactory, “ it is probable that you pos- 
sess among your heirlooms some of this detec- 
tive glass.” 

“ It is possible,” the contessa replied. “ We 
will ask Angelo ; he seems greatly interested 
in everything connected with the history of his 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


U3 


father’s family, though my husband manifest- 
ed a strange ignorance and inditference to 
genealogical matters, and always maintained 
that what one’s ancestors had done conveyed 
neither distinction nor shame upon his descend- 
ants, but that every man was noble or ignoble 
according to his own conduct.” 

The party embarked again and followed a 
channel marked in the shallow lagoon by a pro- 
cession of posts to the island of Burano, for a 
glimpse at the lace-workers, who, under the 
patronage of the Countess Marcello, have re- 
vived the manufacture of the exquisite point de 
Yenise. 

Winnie bought a beautiful collar, copied 
from an antique pattern, worn possibly by 
Catharine de Cornaro, or designed— as she liked 
to think was quite possible — by Rosalba Car- 
riera, who, before she became a painter, occu- 
pied herself in this way. It was Professor 
Waite’s turn to hasten them here by reminding 
them that they would have a very late dinner 
if they did not immediately proceed to their 
picnic ground, Torcello. 

In deference to the claims of hunger, they 
postponed further sightseeing, and ran their 


124 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


gondolas up a lonely canal, or rather creek, for 
in its neglect it was difficult to decide whether 
it had ever been an artificial waterway, and 
gliding between grassy banks, they moored in 
a little inlet back of the ruins of the first 
church. At a little distance was the Cathedral, 
with its group of buildings, and close to them 
the marble seat in the open field called Attila’s 
Throne. Here in the solitude of the deserted 
city, on grass-grown mounds, ruins of that first 
city of which the count had told them, they 
spread their little feast, taken from the well- 
filled paniers which Tribolo brought to them 
from the gondolas. The violets leaned their 
blue heads over the tablecloth, and there was 
not a sound or glimpse of any human being to 
interrupt their privacy. 

Just as Winnie had given an artistic touch to 
the grapes, piled on their own vine leaves, and 
stood ofi regarding the effect, wishing that there 
were other artistic eyes to appreciate it, and 
Adelaide, as she lifted the last roast chicken 
from the hamper, was lamenting that there were 
not more in the party to enjoy the feast, they 
heard a merry halloo behind them, and turn- 
ing, beheld another gondola gliding up the 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


125 


inlet. It was the count and John Nash ; for, 
in order to make his excuse true, Angelo had 
sought J ohn out and taken him away for a 
sketching trip on the lagoon. Not knowing 
the destination of his mother’s excursion, he 
had by sheer trickery chance stumbled into 
the very party which he had determined to 
avoid. 

There was no remedy for it now, and he came 
forward with his easy grace, backing up John’s 
exuberant delight with polite courtesy. 

Just in time for luncheon,” was Adelaide’s 
greeting. ‘‘You could not have timed it bet- 
ter if it had been a rendezvous.” 

“ How do you know that it was not planned 
on my part ?” Angelo replied, and his mother 
pleased— for she believed that he had repented 
and followed them — made haste to introduce 
him to Tib. 

“This is Miss Smith,” she said; “and we 
have just discovered that our parents were 
neighbors in my old Long Island home. I think 
you met when you were children, though prob- 
ably neither of you remember it now.” 

Neither remembered ! The good lady little 
imagined that the childish friendship was the 


126 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


most vividly real thing for both in all the melt- 
ing perspective of their early lives. 

Angelo looked at Tib keenly. No, he would 
never have recognized his little playmate ; but 
he was struck again by the placid beauty of her 
face, a beauty of expression more than of fea- 
ture, though these were regular— a face telling 
of an earnest, thoughtful mind, of a pure life 
and high ideals, a face to respect, to trust, and 
for the few for whom she dropped that quiet 
barrier of reserve, to love. Angelo Zanelli felt 
all this as he looked, and at the same time there 
came upon him a great surging wave of recol- 
lection of their ideal child friendship, and he 
exclaimed impulsively, Is it possible that you 
are Nellie Zanelli 

Winnie laughed mischievously, and Profes- 
sor Waite, who was something of a tease, re- 
plied jocosely that it was impossible to predict 
what a young lady’s name might or might not 
become, but that at present their young friend 
rejoiced in a name borne by more distinguished 
people than any other the world over— namely, 
the noble cognomen of Smith. 

The count showed his vexation and embar- 
rassment ; but Tib explained with perfect self- 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


127 


possession : ‘ ^ When we were playfellows some 
fifteen years ago, Count Zanelli took a violent 
dislike to the sound of the word Smith, and 
amused himself by adopting me as his sister, in 
order that I might bear a more musical name.” 

“ I heartily confirm the act of adoption,” the 
contessa remarked kindly. Your mother 
was my dear friend. You must urge your 
parents to come out to Yenice before you return 
to America.” 

Having explained the situation, Tib speedily 
drew the conversation away from reminiscence, 
and chatted rather volubly of the places they 
had seen that morning, of Yenice and its his- 
tory, and of the opening chapter of his own book 
which he had read at Professor Waite’s studio. 

Count Zanelli was not wholly pleased. It 
seemed to him that she must either have for- 
gotten all their intense childish affection, all 
their sympathetic intercourse, which had given 
to the old days their abiding influence over him, 
or else that they awoke no such feeling in her 
memory as in his own. He did not like to have 
the topic which was uppermost in his mind 
thus authoritatively dismissed, nor did he care 
to talk about his own work. He occupied 


128 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


himself with his sandwiches and with serv- 
ing the Chianti from the slender-necked, 
silken- tasselled flasks, and allowed others to 
carry on the conversation, assuming the posi- 
tion of a silent critic. He recalled his first im- 
pressions of Tib, and raged inwardly that a girl 
with so hopelessly frivolous a mind should 
have a face with such a subtle charm, and that, 
having it, she should be so coldly irresponsive. 
But he was not allowed to sulk in silence ; the 
girls really wished to know more of the history 
of Torcello, and he could not refuse to give 
them the information for which they asked. 

You referred in your lecture to the Patri- 
arch Or so,” said Winnie. “ I believe you said 
that he was at one time Bishop of Torcello and 
built this cathedral. I wish you would tell us 
about him.” 

“ The history of the entire family is interest- 
ing,” Count Zanelli replied, ‘^and interwoven 
with that of Venice in its first glorious period. 
There were three doges in succession. The 
first abdicated to enter the Church ; the sec- 
ond, his son, Pietro Orseolo, began to reign in 
991, and was that leader who cleared the sea of 
pirates, took their robber-stronghold Lagosta, 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


129 


and brought Istria, Dalmatia, and all the neigh- 
boring islands under the power of Venice. It 
was to celebrate this conquest that the cere- 
mony of Venice wedding the sea was insti- 
tuted. On his death his son Otto succeeded 
him, and his younger son, Orso, who had been 
Bishop of Torcello, was made Patriarch. The 
two brothers were noble, young, and devoted 
to each other. For fifteen years each occupied 
his position of honor with faithfulness— Otto a 
worthy successor of his illustrious father ; 
Orso busying himself with the building of this 
cathedral, beautifying it with the old pillars 
that had been brought from Altinum, and with 
the others which we have seen to-day. But the 
Orseolo succession to the dogeship had come to 
be almost a hereditary dynasty, and the occu- 
pation of the highest offices, both secular and 
clerical, by two brothers could not fail to excite 
the envy of the other nobles. Plots and out- 
bursts followed, culminating in the banishment 
of the doge and the elevation of a rival to his 
seat. But the new doge could not keep what 
he had seized, and he soon proved himself so 
incompetent that he was degraded from office, 
and the populace clamored for the restoration 


130 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


of Doge Orseolo. But lie had so successfully 
hidden his misfortunes in his exile that no one 
knew where he could be found, and so the 
Patriarch Orso was called from the cloister to 
the Ducal Palace to reign provisionally, while 
a younger brother was sent with a commission 
to travel through the East and lind the ban- 
ished Otto. 

“I see that Mrs. Waite has brought ‘The 
Makers of Venice ’ with her ; and I will resign 
my office of historian and allow Mrs. Oliphant 
to finish the story from this point.” 

The audience protested, but the count was 
firm. He had seen the book under the cushion 
of the gondola, and turning to the page, he 
handed it to Adelaide, and she read aloud : 

“ ‘ The voyage of the embassy occupied more 
than a year. During these long months Orso 
reigned in peace. Not a word of censure is 
recorded of his peaceful sway. In the splendor 
of those halls which his fathers had built he 
watched over Venice, on one hand, and on the 
other for the ships sailing back across the 
lagoons, bringing the banished Otto home. 
How many a morning must he have looked out, 
before he said his Mass, upon the rising dawn 


THE LAGOONS. 


131 


and watched the blueness of the skies and seas 
grow clear in the East, where lay his bishoj^ric, 
his flock, his cathedral, and all the duties that 
were his, and with anxious eyes swept the 
winding of the level waters, still and gray, the 
metallic glimmer of the aqua morte.^ and the 
navigable channels that gleamed between ! 
When a sail came in sight between those lines, 
stealing up from Malamocco, what expectations 
must have moved his heart ! 

‘‘ ^ But when the ships came back, their 
drooping banners and mourning array must 
have told the news long before they cast an- 
chor in the lagoon. Otto was dead in exile. 
There is nothing said to intimate that they had 
brought back even his body to lay it with his 
fathers in San Zaccaria. The banished prince 
had found an exile’s grave. 

^ After this sad end to all his hopes, the noble 
Orso showed how magnanimous and disinter- 
ested had been his inspiration. N'ot for him- 
self, but for Otto he had held that trust. He 
laid down at once those honors which were not 
his, and returned to his own charge and duties. 

‘ Many years after this Orso held his patri- 
archate in peace and honor, and the name of the 


132 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


younger brother, Vitale, appears as his succes- 
sion, while their sister, Felicia, was abbess of a 
convent at Torcello. But a connection of the 
family, Domenico, made an attempt to seize the 
supreme power, and the people, startled by the 
fear of dynastic succession, pronounced the race 
incapable henceforward of holding any office 
under the republic. The prohibition would 
seem to have been of little practical importance, 
since of the children of Pietro Orseolo the Great 
there remained none except priests and nuns. 
This story has the completeness of an epic. 
They lived and ruled and made Venice great. 
And then it was evident that they had com- 
pleted their mission, and the race came to an 
end. Greatness has faded from the ancient 
commune as it faded from the family of their 
bishop, and Torcello, like the Orseoli, may seem 
to look wistfully yet with no grudge across 
the level waste of the sea to Venice, which 
has carried her life away. But the story of 
this tender brother, the banished doge’s de- 
fender, champion, substitute, and mourner, he 
who reigned for Otto, and for himself neither 
sought nor accepted anything, is worthy of the 
scene. ’ 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


133 


“But that does not seem mournful to me,’’ 
said Adelaide, as she closed the book, “ and 
Torcello never does. I think it is a more beau- 
tiful thing to close a story nobly than to fritter 
out at the end, to degenerate, as so many worthy 
families have done, leaving noble names to be 
ignobly borne ; and I would rather see these 
noble buildings empty and desolate than put to 
vile uses.’’ 

“ I agree with you, my dear,” said the con- 
tessa. “ To me Torcello is not sad. Looking at 
our beautiful Venice, we cannot regret that she 
burst this humble chrysalis. Lindsay has 
something of the same feeling when he says 
that his emotions here were something akin to 
‘ gazing at the portrait of a hero in his child- 
hood.’ ” 

‘ ‘ And now to close our lecture with an object 
lesson,” said Professor Waite, “ you must all 
see the view from the top of the Campanile.” 

The girls, acting upon his suggestion, climbed 
to the top of the tower. Count Zanelli and 
John Nash followed, and joined them on the 
summit, where the count pointed out and named 
the different islands. The sunset was flushing 
the Alpine range, and the Doge’s Palace, San 


134 


WITCn WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Marco, and the great Campanile of the Piazza 
were silhouetted against a sky of beaten gold. 
Winnie was ecstatic in her enthusiasm, and 
Tib’s face showed that she was drinking in all 
this beauty with keen delight. 

‘‘How thankful I am,” Count Zanelli 
thought, “ that she does not choose this occa- 
sion to gush. If she had only had the wit to 
have kept quiet that first afternoon, what a 
different impression I might have had of her !” 
He handed Tib his field-glass and watched her 
as she swept the horizon with it, deciding that 
he was wrong in thinking that if he were an 
artist he would paint her looking straight out 
from the canvas with her soulful eyes fixed on 
the spectator. No artist could do justice to 
those eyes ; it would be wiser to paint her in 
profile as he saw her now, looking away into 
the distance and quite unconscious that she 
herself was a beautiful picture. 

They descended the stairs together, and found 
that Adelaide had packed the picnic baskets 
and that the contessa was quite ready to return 
to Venice. The sun had set, and she did not 
like to be so far out on the lagoons after dark. 

“Do not be alarmed, mother,” said the 


ON TUB LAGOONS. 


135 


count. I sent back my gondola on our ar- 
rival, and shall return with you. I knew you 
would feel safer to have me with you, and I 
was sure the Waites could find room in their 
large gondola for Mr. Nash.” 

And so it happened that they drifted back to 
Venice together in the lovely twilight. The 
heavy felsa curtains were put back, and Tib sat 
half reclining among the cushions by the side 
of the contessa, while Angelo Zanelli sat op- 
posite. 

The party in the accompanying gondola sang 
college songs to Winnie’s guitar, and Tib and 
Angelo Zanelli joined in the refrain. The 
contessa chatted at intervals, but the somno- 
lent rocking of the boat soon had its effect, and 
she slept peacefully. Her son tucked the soft 
wraps about her tenderly and looked at her 
serene face with loving admiration. “ Is she 
not beautiful ?” he asked impulsively. 

Yes, indeed,” Tib replied with earnestness ; 
‘‘ you are rich in having such a mother.” 

He looked up gratefully. rich,” he 

replied ; 1 have her and Venice. And what 

do you think of Venice ? I remember in the 
old days you were wonderfully well informed 


136 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


for a little girl about our city. I trust it does 
not disappoint you. It is not very gay so- 
cially.” 

A smile of fine scorn played around Tib’s 
lips. ‘‘ I cannot imagine that the most world- 
ly society woman would care for social life 
here. Venice itself must fill every longing.” 

Angelo Zanelli was surprised ; he had not 
expected such an answer ; but he was not con- 
vinced of her sincerity. ‘‘ She will betray her- 
self soon,” he said to himself; she has 
learned that pretty speech as a parrot would, 
by rote.” But though he tried her with sev- 
eral crucial questions, and she was quite unsus- 
picious of his purpose, she stood her examina- 
tion very well. There is one infallible test,” 
he said to himself. I will take her to the 
gallery of the Academy and find out what pic- 
tures she likes ; then I shall really know 
whether there is any hope for her. ” 

The engagement was accordingly made for 
the following day — for Tib was only too grate- 
ful for an opportunity to view the Venetian 
masters under the guidance of a cultured Vene- 
tian. 

Then suddenly, as he looked at her sweet 


ON THE LAGOONS. 


137 


face, he forgot his purpose of coldly analyzing 
her intellectual powers, and said impulsively : 
‘‘I suppose all our childish play under that 
dilapidated wharf, when we used to dig little 
canals in the sand and imprison crabs in lobster- 
pot dungeons, seems very absurd to you now ; 
but to me that little girl in the ruffled pink sun- 
bonnet is a very vivid and charming memory. 
I have forgotten nearly everything I learned at 
the University of Padua, but I shall never for- 
get the poems she taught me or our sweet child- 
ish friendship.” 

Nor I, Lolo.” Tib bit her lips, and wished 
the words back, but it was too late, they could 
not be recalled. It was as though a flashlight 
had revealed for an instant the inmost recesses 
of her soul, and Angelo Zanelli knew that all 
that dream -life of childhood held the same im- 
portance for her that it did for him, that the 
memory of that intimate comradeship, so long 
interrupted, had been cherished by her as he 
had cherished it, and might be taken up again, 
if they should And that they had not grown 
apart ; that their tastes and sympathies, their 
intellectual life and moral training had not 
made a chasm between them so wide that no 


138 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


affection could bridge. They were both thank- 
ful that the gondola had now entered the light 
and movement of the. Grand Canal, that the 
contessa had awakened, and all was activity, 
and a joyous tumult of music and cries and 
laughter precluded all conversation. 

The keel of the gondola grazed gently against 
the marble stair, and the count sprang to the 
doorway and assisted his mother and Tib to 
alight. 

^‘Good-night, Nellie Zanelli,” the contessa 
called merrily ; but Tib froze instantly into 
dignity, and the good lady felt that her pleas- 
antry was ill timed. She had not heard the 
little phrase, “ Nor I, Lolo,” or she would have 
been less distressed at the apparent indiffer- 
ence of these young people. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


“ There Titian, Tintoret, and Giambellin, 

And that strong master of a myriad hues, 

The Veronese, like flowers with odors keen, 

Shall smite your brain with splendors ; they confuse 
The soul that, wandering in their world, must lose 
Count of their littleness, and cry that then 
The gods we dream of walked the earth like men.” 

J. A. Symonds. 


XHELO ZANELLI’S mind' 
was in a tumult of doubt 
and perplexity. He 
felt strongly attract- 
ed by this enigmat- 
ical girl, but at the same 
time he reasoned with him- 
self sternly on account of 
what he considered his in- 
fatuation. He escorted her 
to the Academy the next 
day with a foreboding of 
disenchantment. She 
will show some depth of ignorance and bad 
taste,” he thought, ‘‘which will make me feel 



140 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


that I can never speak to her again.” And so 
he was in no haste to begin his inquisition, for 
Tib was unusually pretty that morning. Win- 
nie had hidden her battered Tam o’Shanter cap 
which had done duty all summer, and had lent 
her own broad-brimmed hat with the curl- 
ing ostrich plumes. She had tied a broad, soft 
ribbon around Tib’s graceful throat, not com- 
menting that her color, which came and went 
with unusual quickness, matched its fresh tint. 
She had accompanied them to the gallery, but 
had left them seated before Titian’s “ Assump- 
tion of the Virgin,” and had rambled off on a 
quest of her own after the pastel portraits of 
Rosalba Carriera. 

Tib sat silently turning the leaves of her 
guide-book, and Angelo Zanelli noticed with 
displeasure that she did not look at the great 
painting. He could not understand such ob- 
tuseness— or was it perversity ? She must have 
heard of it. Had she no interest, no curios- 
ity even in this, one of the world’s master- 
pieces ? Finally she looked up, and her atten- 
tion became instantly fixed. He watched her 
furtively until she came out of her day- 
dream, then he braced himself for a shock. 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


141 


and it came, but not in the way that he had ex- 
pected. 

“It is such a foolish thing,” she said, “ to 
dread being disappointed, not to dare to know 
the real truth about any person or thing. 
Don’t you think so ?” 

It seemed to Angelo Zanelli that she had read 
his thought, and he stammered in his embar- 
rassment that it w^as often a great pleasure to 
find one’s self mistaken. 

“ Is it not ?” Tib replied. “ I am sp relieved 
now. I have seen so many paintings that, 
seemed to me overpraised that when we came 
in I actually did not dare to look at this won- 
derful picture. As if Titian could disappoint ! 
I am so ashamed of myself for imagining such 
a thing !” 

The count was surprised and delighted, but 
was still far from suspecting that Tib’s mind 
was as highly cultivated and as fully developed 
as his own ; but he realized that here, at least, 
was an appreciative nature, capable of the high- 
est cultivation. Without being priggish or 
egotistic, he took it for granted that his own 
abilities and acquirements were superior to hers. 
He fancied that hitherto she had spent her life 


142 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


on the Long Island farm, without ojiportunities 
for higher education. He pitied her for this 
deprivation, and his soul was fired with the 
generons resolve to enlighten and develop her. 
He believed that his motives were purely philan- 
thropic, and he set about the task at once. He 
led her to his favorites— the paintings of the 
two Bellinis, in which the Academy is so rich — 
the Madonnas with the Christ Child of the 
younger and greater brother, Giovanni, attend- 
ed by saints and angels, among which are some 
of the most charming child faces ever painted. 
He explained the pictures with great pains, and 
was pleased by the deep admiration with which 
she studied them, but a little piqued by the 
rather amused look with which she received his 
somewhat elementary instruction, and by the 
light curiosity with which she treated the large 
compositions of the older brother, Gentile— 
those imposing backgrounds of architecture, 
concourses of people— especially The Proces- 
sion” and the ‘‘ Miracle of the Holy Cross.” 
She volunteered the remark that Gentile Bel- 
lini’s and Carpaccio’s canvases reminded her 
of old fashion-plates in their rendering of the 
costume of their day ; he felt that the com- 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


143 


parison was frivolous, and assured her that they 
were the most important of records existing 
concerning^ the architecture and life of the 
period — which was really not so far from 
what she had intended to say. She listened 
politely, as though she had never heard the fact 
before, to his information that Gentile Bellini 
was so highly considered that when the Sultan 
sent for the best painter in Venice to execute 
his portrait he was given the commission ; and 
much that he told her of Carpaccio, the connect- 
ing link between these two earliest Venetian 
masters and the four great men who followed 
them, was indeed new to her. 

Winnie, who had discreetly left them to 
themselves, reappeared after an hour. Her 
conscience had reproached her for the part she 
had played at the outset in so completely lead- 
ing the count astray in his estimate of her 
friend, and she determined to give him every 
opportunity of modifying the opinion which he 
had formed. She found him deep in his ex- 
position, and was rather indignant that he had 
occupied the time in imparting information, in- 
stead of allowing Tib to reveal anything of her 
true self. She yawned behind her hand, and 


144 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


expressing herself as having had quite enough 
of pictures for one morning, insisted on return- 
ing home. 

But the count had only begun to taste the 
delight of developing an appreciative mind, 
and he joined them that evening in Professor 
Waite’s studio. It happened that for some 
time John Nash was the only other guest, and 
that he suggested that they should resolve 
themselves into a symposium for the clearing 
up of their ideas in relation to the painters 
whose works they were continually meeting, 
and that Professor Waite should be chairman. 

Yes,” Tib assented. ‘‘Give us a general 
picture of the period, and frame the picture in 
with its confining dates. Let us know just 
which names stand for the foreground char- 
acters and which are only shadowy background 
adjuncts ; give us the relation of the picture to 
its neighbors in the other cities of Italy. Then 
we will select the men that interest us most in 
the picture, and you can tell us where their 
best work is to be found, and we can make our 
pilgrimage with an intelligent purpose.” 

She made the request with the kindly im- 
pulse of backing up John’s real thirst for in- 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


145 


formation, but the count thought it a confes- 
sion of her own need for instruction, and he re- 
plied enthusiastically that such a condensation 
of important facts, a freshening up of knowl- 
edge which had grown rusty, was just what 
they all needed. 

‘‘ To begin with,” Winnie remarked, I wish 
you would tell me how to remember dates. I 
have no end of miscellaneous knowledge, but it 
is not properly pigeon-holed. Dates were al- 
ways my bugbear in history.” 

“ The dates of Venetian history are very 
easily grouped and remembered,” the count re- 
plied. You have only to fix in your mind 
that the city was founded in 400 a.d., and that 
the period of decline began in 1600, after 
which there is nothing worthy of your study, 
and the twelve hundred years between those 
dates divide and subdivide into very convenient 
periods. For instance, halve the twelve hun- 
dred, and you will have from 400 to 1000 a.d. 
six hundred years of quiet growth, and from 1000 
to 1600 A.D. six hundred years of brilliant achieve- 
ment. Again halve this latter period, and we 
find that from 1000 to 1300 a.d. we have three hun- 
dred years in which the achievements were in 


146 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


war, and from 1300 to 1600 a.d. three hundred of 
triumphs in the arts of peace. Halve this last 
period of three hundred years, and we find that 
the first one hundred and fifty years are given 
to a revival of scholarship ; and the last cen- 
tury and a half, from 1450 to 1600 a.d., belongs 
to painting. ” 

“ That is rather odd,” Professor Waite com- 
mented. “ I never saw it stated in just that 
way ; but, broadly speaking, the generalization 
is true. The most brilliant period of Venetian 
art, the period which you wish to study, is 
framed in just that century and a half, for the 
Bellinis began to paint in 1450, and Veronese 
died in 1588, which brings us very close to 1600, 
and between those dates we have the entire 
careers of Giorgione, Tintoretto, Titian, and 
Paul V eronese. It was the Renaissance when 
all Italy was most productive in men of genius. 
Have you ever thought that while the entire 
country was divided into a large number of 
petty States, only two, Florence and Venice, 
were republics ? All of the others were petty 
kingdoms and principalities governed by des- 
pots. It is a curious fact, too, that none of the 
other States, nor all of them together, produced 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


147 


such great men nor so many of them as these 
two republics, and yet life in Florence and in 
Venice was very different. In Florence, under 
the Medici, everything was in a state of unrest 
and upheaval. Savonarola was openly at war 
with the Pope, new ideas were being discussed, 
and the Reformation was in the air. In poli- 
tics, revolution after revolution succeeded each 
other. Any man might dream of becoming a 
prince, like Sforza, or a companion of princes, 
like Petrarch ; and, aided by Lorenzo’s mag- 
nificent patronage, and spurred by the specta- 
cle of genius all about him, many a man did 
rise from very humble antecedents to a place of 
eminence. Everything was in ferment, and 
change was the order of the day. In Venice, 
on the contrary, everything was quiet and 
fixed. Its cautious policy insured the stability 
of its institutions. Its government had become 
a close and suspicious oligarchy. Power was 
confined to those families whose names were in- 
scribed in the Golden Book. Executive power 
was gradually restricted to fewer hands, and 
that secrecy was secured which we are told 
the Venetians regarded as the highest object 
of government. In the fifteenth century the 


148 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Council of Ten was supreme. Perhaps Count 
Zanelli will explain to us how it happened that 
while she was a republic only in name, she 
should have resembled Florence in lifting to 
the highest eminence men of very plebeian ori- 
gin, and that the most aristocratic society in 
Italy should have done honor to the sons of a 
dyer and a peasant.” 

The answer is a simple one,” Angelo re- 
plied. “ Venice at this time resembled a deep 
and placid lake walled in by the strong sluice- 
gates of her institutions, and apparently un- 
ruffled by the tossing tumult of the rapids, the 
intense current of the mill-race, or the tremen- 
dous leap of the cataract in the neighboring 
States. But just as the mill-pond above the 
dam feels the strong drawing of those silent, 
unseen undercurrents, which break into foam 
and clamor below, so Venice under her stately 
calm was full of the intensity of the impending 
change from medievalism to modernity, and it 
was this strong undercurrent which kept the 
waters of her life pure, and differentiated the 
living lake from a stagnant tarn. The doge- 
ship of Foscari was perhaps the most luxurious 
era that Venice ever witnessed. She had con- 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


149 


qiiered her pre-eminence and had not yet lost 
it. The princely living made possible by the 
accumulation of great wealth in our lordly city 
is reflected in the sumptuous paintings of that 
magniflcent group of colorists to which the pro- 
fessor has referred. The banquets of Paul 
Veronese could only have been painted in a 
state of society where such lavish hospitality 
was the rule. But V enice entertained guests not 
only from every part of Italy, but from every 
part of the world. She knew what was going 
on in the cities about her. She discussed the 
ideas that were agitating Florence. She was 
broad-minded, ready to accept the new. The 
Renaissance in literature had already been em- 
braced by her in architecture ; it was rapidly 
changing the appearance of the city. In relig- 
ion and politics the new ideas worked in a 
more covert way, but the new principle of the 
brotherhood of man was felt, and when genius 
appeared it was recognized and honored. But 
enough of the background ; now kindly tell us, 
professor, of our four artist heroes, and first of 
Giorgione.” 

‘‘To me Titian is the central figure in the 
picture,” said Professor Waite, '‘for he livea 


150 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


SO long that his life covered the career of the 
others, and was the connecting link between 
them. Giorgione and Titian were fellow-stu- 
dents in the studio of the Bellinis. The young 
Tiziano, who had come down from his moun- 
tain home at Cadore, won to the study of art 
by the solemn majesty of nature, is thought by 
his biographers to have been a serious youth, 
‘ a steady and patient worker, following all the 
rules and the discipline of his master, and tak- 
ing into his capacious brain everything that 
could be taught him ; whereas young Giorgione 
was more masterful and impatient, and with a 
quicker eye and insight (having so much less 
time to do his work in) seized upon those 
points in which his genius could have full 
play.’ Giorgione (Big George), or Torzo da 
Castelfranco, on leaving Bellini’s studio, re- 
turned to Castelfranco, but after executing a 
few orders, came back to Venice and took a 
house not far from the Eialto. It is held by 
some that he and Titian entered into a partner- 
ship to decorate the exterior of buildings with 
frescoes — they certainly worked together on the 
Fondaco de Tedeschi, where Tintoretto’s wall 
was the more generally praised. Only a few 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


151 


vestiges of color are left of these paintings, 
which, like most of the exterior mural paint- 
ings of Venice, have been destroyed by mois- 
ture. ‘ Giorgione ’ is said by one authority ‘ to 
have originated genre painting. His subjects 
are always charming, containing nothing base 
or low, and confined to very simple groups of 
few figures. He was also famous for his por- 
traits. He was a great favorite in Venetian so- 
ciety on account of his fine presence, agreeable 
manners, and great skill as a musician. His 
nature was that of a true poet— profoundly 
thoughtful, yet at the same time taking an in- 
nocent pleasure in life. There are compara- 
tively few of his paintings left us.’ It was 
Huskin who assured him the immortality which 
his works deserve, though Huskin is not to be 
trusted in all of his passionate magnificent as- 
sertions. If you will hand me that unpretend- 
ing little book I will read you an extract from 
Karl Karoly, who sums up briefly and well the 
life of Jacopo Hobusti, called II Tintoretto (The 
Little Dyer), from his father’s business : 

^ He worked for a short time in the studio 
of Titian ; but not being on good terms with 
his master, left after ten days. Over the door 


152 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


of his studio he is said to have inscribed, as a 
definition of the style he preferred, The draw- 
ing of Michael Angelo and the coloring of 
Titian.” 

“ ‘ After some years of struggle and poverty 
he became famous, and married Faustina, the 
daughter of Marco di Yiscovi, a Venetian 
nobleman. They lived in a beautiful house in 
the Calle Larga (No. 3162), which is now called 
the Palazzo Camello. Tintoretto was of a kind 
and genial disposition, and something of a wit. 
He was very generous ; and his wife, who was 
quite the opposite, would give him when he 
went out a small sum of money, and on his re- 
turn required an account of how he had spent 
it. Tintoretto was very fond of his daughter 
Marietta, who worked in his studio dressed as 
a boy. She became very proficient as a por- 
trait painter, and received some brilliant offers 
to go to the courts of Philip II. of Spain and 
Maximilian, but she refused to leave Venice. 
She married a German jeweller. To acquire a 
knowledge of foreshortening, Tintoretto made 
models in wax, which he hung up in his studio 
in a variety of positions, and drew them from 
every point of view. Tintoretto was the most 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


153 


imaginative of all painters. It is only in Ven- 
ice that he can properly be studied. In Judg- 
ing of his works, it must be remembered that 
he worked most rapidly and on a large scale ; 
that he did not care what the public thought of 
his works, and only completed them when he 
felt in the humor to do so ; and that he was the 
most unequal of all painters. 

‘‘ ‘ In many respects, Tintoretto resembled 
Michael Angelo, especially in savage originality 
and energy of will. The feverish energy of his 
work acquired for him the name of the Furi- 
oso.” Venice is full of the works of Tinto- 
retto, which are now generally in a bad condi- 
tion, “ foul with the disfigurements of mildew, 
and all but invisible in the dead blackness 
which has crept over their splendor.” ’ 

“It is but just that this should be ex- 
plained,” said Winnie, “for both Tib and I 
were greatly disappointed with the Scuola di 
San Rocco, which Ruskin calls one of the three 
most precious buildings in Italy, on account of 
the sixty-two paintings by Tintoretto with 
which it is decorated (the other two being the 
Sistine Chapel and the Campo Santo of Pisa). 
We were distressed at first at our own lack of 


154 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


appreciation until we fonnd that E-nskin him- 
self admits that they were all painted for their 
badly lighted positions, and are for the most 
part nothing more than vast sketches made to 
produce, under a certain degree of shadow, the 
effect of finished pictures. Some are really fin- 
ished, while others ‘ seem to have been painted 
in a couple of hours with a broom for a brush. ’ 
He describes the series in detail in his ‘ Stones 
of Venice’ — all but ‘The Crucifixion,’ and of 
this he says simply, ‘ I must leave this picture 
to work its will on the spectator ; for it is be- 
yond all analysis and above all praise.’ ” 

“We studied the ‘ Paradise,’ too, in the 
Ducal Palace,” said Tib, “ very carefully with 
an opera-glass ; but until Professor Waite ex- 
plained the picture we could make nothing of 
it, and we were much consoled when we found 
that Taine said that all he could make out ‘ was 
a mass of figures whirling in a reddish light, 
which seemed that of a conflagration.’ 

“ Walter Thornbury, in his poem on Tintoretto 
painting his dead daughter, makes the artist 
allude to his rivalry with Titian in these words : 

“ That Titian’s still before me in the race ; 

The harpies snatch this angel from my side, 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


155 


And leave his proud-eyed girl with lavish hair 
And great white shoulders, to enhance his pride. 
And serve round sweetmeats to the senators, 

Who flock to him by dozens, to hand down 
To ages heedless of the boon, each vacant face, 

Steeped in one dull dark fog of golden brown. 

“ ‘He fills the churches, palaces, and halls, 

’Tis he who sweeps the ducats to his lap. 

He paints the emperors, cardinals, and popes ; 

To him the meanest boatman doffs his cap. 

“ ‘ Yet we shall meet in Paradise, and there 
She’ll smile to see St. Luke my withered hand 
Grasp at the golden gate, while Titian takes 
The lower seat. I have him on the hip,’ 

You may call me lacking in appreciation of the 
more heroic qualities, but to me Titian is the great- 
est 'painter of them all. His career is so wonder- 
ful, when one thinks that at thirty-five he was 
without a rival throughout all Europe, and the 
record of his work is simply incredible, even 
when we take into consideration the fact that 
he painted until his ninety ninth year. All the 
great galleries of Europe appear to possess 
numerous examples of his works — and what a 
variety of subjects !— sacred and profane his- 
tory, mythological legends, landscapes and por- 


156 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


traits— and to me these are best of all— and 
how many he painted ! Nearly every great 
potentate of Europe of the sixteenth century 
ordered his portrait of Titian— Charles Y. sev- 
eral times ; Philip II. ; Francis I. of France ; 
the Sultan Solyman ; Popes Clement YII., Paul 
III., and Paul lY. ; all the doges of his time ; 
the Dukes of Urbino and Alba ; the Constable 
de Bourbon ; Andrea Doria, of Genoa ; Caesar 
Borgia ; Count Castiglione ; Cardinals Ippolito 
de Medici, Bembo, Sforza, and Farnese ; Ari- 
osto ; Tasso ; Sansovino, and many others— a 
complete historical gallery illustrating the time 
in which he lived, and all of them master- 
pieces. I admire him even more as a delinea- 
tor of character than as a master of color. I 
think Kuskin does him justice for once when 
he says that beside the senatorial dignity of 
his old Yenetian nobles all our modern gentle- 
men look poor and small, and I wonder if 
women were so much more beautiful in his 
day, so much happier than they are now, as 
they appear to be in his joyous paintings ? 
What do you think. Count Zanelli T’ 

Angelo Zanelli had been following Tib in- 
tently as she spoke rapidly and enthusiast!- 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


157 


cally. It was a revelation, and he could scarce- 
ly credit that this girl, upon whom he had 
looked down so patronizingly, could not only 
talk so well, but actually knew of what she was 
talking. But her direct question turned the 
current of his thought. 

We have one ancestral portrait, said to 
have been painted by Titian,” he replied, 
“ though it is not signed. It hangs between 
those windows ; you can judge whether a man 
of my race might really have looked like that.” 

They all turned to the portrait in question — 
that of a very noble-looking man, past the 
prime of life, gowned in black, with sunken 
eyes and an emaciated, scholarly face. 

‘‘ I do not think that Titian added any flat- 
tering touch of his own to that face,” said Ade- 
laide ; ‘‘it is such a one as yours will become 
when you are old.” 

The count laughed in a forced way. “You 
have paid me no compliment,” he said. “ Do 
not repeat it to my mother ; but there are un- 
canny tales told of that benevolent-looking indi- 
vidual ; that he was an alchemist and worse, 
and that the motto on the scroll, ‘ I die that 
others may live,’ was true, but in no good 


158 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


sense. He died as a serpent dies, crushed 
in order that he might injure no more by his 
nefarious arts. It is a noble ancestry that I 
boast, is it not 

He seemed so excited that Professor Waite 
hastened to bring the conversation back to safe 
and impersonal ground. Titian was always 
a gentleman,” he said ; ‘‘he had received a 
learned education, and had polished manners. 
His wife, Cecilia, died in 1530, and his sister, 
Orsa, came from his birthplace, the mountain 
town of Cad ore, to live with him in the house 
you visited. It was then a fashionable part 
of Venice, and Titian lived very luxurious- 
ly, entertaining much. He had three chil- 
dren — Pomponio, who was such a wild youth, 
even after he became a priest, that his father 
would not allow him to accept a bishopric 
which was offered him, as he was certain 
that he would disgrace it ; Orazio, who was a 
scholar and an inventor (it is said an alchemist, 
too ; so your ancestor had good company, 
count) ; and a much -loved daughter, Lavinia, 
whom he painted bearing a great dish of fruit, 
the product probably of his garden. He loved 
to deck her with jewels, and bought an organ 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


159 


for her use. She married a gentleman of the 
Cadore country, and went back to live among 
the mountains, where her father frequently 
visited her. Among the noble guests whom he 
entertained was the Emperor Charles V. It is 
possible that Caesar Borgia had his portrait in 
that very house, for he was in Venice for a 
short time with his three hundred horsemen, 
and the discourteous guests stole even the 
hangings of their beds when they left. It is 
said that Caesar himself stole an altar cloth 
which he fancied. I have here a curious let- 
ter from one of Titian’s guests — the scholar 
Priscianese— who, writing back to Rome, de- 
scribes a dinner at Titian’s house. It is such a 
good picture that I will read it : 

^ I was invited on the 1st of August to cele- 
brate a feast in the delightful garden of Messer 
Tiziano Yecelli, a most excellent painter and a 
person truly adapted to season with courtesies 
any distinguished entertainment. There were 
assembled with the said Messer Tiziano — as like 
desires like — some of the rarest geniuses which 
are found at present in this city, principally 
Messer Pietro Aretino, a new miracle of na- 
ture, and next to him 11 Sansovino, almost as 


160 WITOH WINNIE IN VENICE. 

great an imitator of nature with the chisel as 
was the master of the feast with the pencil ; 
also Messer Jacopo Nardi and myself, so that 
I made the fourth among such wisdom. Here, 
before they set out the tables— for although the 
place was shady the sun still made his strength 
felt— the time was passed in contemplation of 
the lifelike figures in the excellent paintings 
of which the house was full, and in discussing 
the beauty and charm of the garden, which was 
a pleasure and a wonder to every one. 

‘ It is situated in the extreme part of Ven- 
ice, upon the sea, and from it may be seen the 
pretty island of Murano and other beautiful 
places. This part of the sea, as soon as the sun 
went down, was filled with a thousand little 
gondolas adorned with beautiful women, and 
resounded with divers harmonies, the music of 
voices and instruments, which till midnight ac- 
companied our delightful supper. In the mean 
while came the hour for supper, which was no 
less beautiful and well arranged than plentifully 
provided. Besides the most delicate viands 
and precious wines, there were all those pleas- 
ures and amusements that were appropriate to 
the season, the guests, and the feast. Having 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


161 


just arrived at the fruit, your letter came. 
Finally the supper ended most pleasantly. ’ 

“ Many another supper ended in the same 
way at that hospitable house ; but at length 
the plague came again to Venice, and the great 
artist died there quite alone. Sister Orsa was 
dead, Lavinia away in her mountain home, 
Pomponio careless, and Orazio lay dying at the 
same time at the public pest-house. It is said 
that robbers broke in and sacked the house 
before his dying eyes ; but that is hardly cred- 
ible, for no hope of plunder could have induced 
even a brigand to enter a plague-infected house.” 

It seems as if Byron must have been think- 
ing of Titian’s house and garden,” said Win- 
nie, when he wrote : 

“ ‘ In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more, 

And silent rows the songless gondolier. 

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 

Those days are gone, but beauty still is here : 
States fall and fade, but Nature doth not die. 

Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear. 

The pleasant place of all festivity. 

The revel of the earth, the mosque of Italy.’ ” 

“ Oh, no !” Tib exclaimed. ‘‘lam sure that 
was suggested by Paul Veronese’s great ban- 


162 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


quet scenes, as well as tills description of Ven- 
ice : 

“ ‘ She looks a sea Cybele fresh from ocean, 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
At airy distance with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers. 

And such she was ; her daughters had their dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
Pour’d in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 

In purple was she robed, and at her feasts 

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.’ ” 

“It is very possible,” said Professor Waite, 
who had been consulting several books and had 
marked some passages. “ ‘ Paolo was the son 
of Gabriele Caliari, an obscure sculptor, and was 
born at Verona ; hence his appellation Veronese. 

“ ‘ He went to Venice about 1555. When he 
arrived he was already an accomplished artist, 
but he learned much from Titian, who held him 
in high esteem. He was for a time in Home 
with the Venetian ambassador Grimani ; and it 
was on his return to Venice that his brilliant 
career began. Veronese was a man of amiable 
manners, of a liberal, generous spirit, and ex- 
tremely pious.’ 

“ Of the many descriptions of Veronese’s 
‘Fame of Venice,’ or ‘ Venice Enthroned’ (on 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


163 


the ceiling near the ‘ Paradise ’) Taine’s is the 
best : 

“ ‘ Amid grand architectural forms of balco- 
nies and spiral columns sits Venice, *the blonde, 
on a throne radiant with beauty, a queen whose 
mere rank gives the right to be happy, and 
whose only desire is to render those who see 
her happy also. On her serene head, which is 
thrown slightly backward, two angels place a 
crown. Beneath, on a balustrade, are Venetian 
ladies in the costume of the time — in low-neck 
dresses, cut square and closely fitting the body. 
It is actual society, and is as seductive as the 
goddess. There is not one who is not merely 
cheerful but joyous. 

“ It is of this painting that a poet writes : 

“ ‘ How didst thou once, Venetia, gorgeously 
Flaunt like a haughty queen in gold array, 

As Paolo Veronese painted thee ! ’ 


‘ His canvases are nearly always large, and 
his subjects incidents which admit of being ren- 
dered with pomp and magnificence. He loved 
to depict scenes of costly splendor, to which he 
gave scriptural names, but which were in real- 
ity Venetian life of the day. He painted all 


164 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


subjects, even the most solemn, in the same 
gorgeous style. He was precisely the painter 
suited to a nation of successful merchants. 
His coloring differs from that of his great rivals 
in its silvery transparency. He died in 1588, 
and was buried in the Church of San Sebastiano. ’ 

“ Sir Joshua Reynolds justly characterized 
the mode of composition and execution peculiar 
to the Venetians as the decorative style. This 
involves a strange luxury of arcades, porticos, 
balconies, and staircases, and of rich silks and 
draperies, which was somewhat detrimental to 
the ideality of the subject. 

“ This completes our brief survey of the 
great quartette. It has certainly been a good 
idea to fix them distinctly in our minds while 
we are studying their works. It is only a 
superficial glance ; but if we supplement it 
with more earnest study our time has not been 
lost.’’ 

I could have said that myself to you an 
hour ago with the same professorial dignity 
and condescension,” said Angelo Zanelli to 
Tib ; ‘ ‘ but I see now that you have really given 
the subject very earnest study already, and I 
beg your pardon for presuming hitherto to take 


THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 


165 


the tone of a tutor. You must have been 
laughing at my ridiculous airs. I descend 
from the rostrum. After this, as in the old 
days, when you were Nellie Zanelli and I was 
Lolo, when I want instruction about Venice I 
will come to you.” 

‘‘You are wrong in thinking that I have 
been laughing at you,” Tib began ; but Winnie 
interrupted her. 

“ Indeed we have, though. It was such fun 
to take you in that first night here, when you 
imagined us two giddy, rattle-pated girls.” 

“ So that was a little play acted for my bene- 
fit V ’ he asked. 

“ Yes ; and we had begun to feel that we 
had acted it too well, and to wonder how we 
should ever gain your good opinion. ” 

It was Tib who spoke ; and the count replied ; 

“ Teach me how to gain yours. Density such 
as mine has been ought not to be pardoned too 
easily, and should have a long penance and a 
hard one.” 

“ Your penance shall be to continue your 
kind instruction, and believe me, Winnie and I 
are most grateful for this delightful introduc- 
tion to Venice,” 


CHAPTER X. 



A FESTA. 


OUXT ANGELO’S pen- 
ance, though it did not 
seem hard, was certainly a 
long one. The mornings 
were still sacred to work, 
but every afternoon he 
devoted to showing the 
girls some new part of 
Venice. Now it was 
some masterpiece of 
one of the great paint- 
ers, hidden away in an obscure church — one 
afternoon Tintoretto’s in the Church of the 
Madonna dell’ Orto — and in the morning he 
even wilily suggested that he could guide 
them to out-of-the-way spots for their sketch- 
ing, to Tintoretto’s house with the carved 
camel over the window, to some cloistered 
court with a carved stone well-curb in the 


A FIJSTA. 


167 


centre, or to a staircase with exquisite balus- 
trades, to one of the canopied Madonnas, or 
to the Giudecca with its fishing-boats and the 
distant spires reflected in the lagoon. 

And though with each pilgrimage he obtained 
new insight into their character, and compre- 
hended how little they needed his tutorship, 
still he did not cease his friendly ministrations, 
though his conversation became less didactic 
and lost every vestige of patronage, and the 
‘^mad pride of intellectuality.” There was 
not much chat of any kind during these days. 
They simply stood silently together before the 
great paintings, seeming to know by intuition 
what the other thought about them, while 
Winnie filled their silences with her lightsome 
chatter. 

Were there ever such beautiful days as those 
which came with the early spring ? The gray, 
sodden clouds, which had often settled during 
the winter into dismal rain, rolled away in 
great billowing masses and crowned the Alps 
on the northern horizon, piling themselves in 
mimic mountain ranges above the real ones, 
leaving the dome of heaven a clear crystalline 
blue. They were in their gondolas all day long. 


168 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


and in the clear, starlit nights, when the canals 
were all aglow with twinkling lights and sway- 
ing, many-colored lanterns, they followed in 
the wake of the serenading barges, listening to 
and Joining in the songs. 

The Church of the Salute had always charmed 
Tib as she watched it from their balcony, and 
Angelo was especially fond of it. They could 
both say, with Hopkinson Smith : 

‘‘ This beautiful church is always my rendez- 
vous. It is half-way to everything — to the 
Public Garden ; across the Giudecca ; away 
over to the Lagoon, where the fishermen live ; 
to the Rialto and beyond. In the freshness of 
the morning, when its lovely dome throws a 
cool shadow across its piazza, there is no better 
place for a painter to make up his mind where 
he would work.” 

The count claimed the privilege of showing 
the church to the girls on the occasion of the 
great annual festival. They walked across the 
bridge of boats which was thrown across the 
Grand Canal. 

Salute means health, does it not Tib 
asked, looking up at the beautiful building. 

‘‘Yes,” the count replied ; “ the convent was 


A FESTA. 


169 


built by the city of Venice on ground formerly 
belonging to the Knights Templars as a votive 
offering on the cessation of the last visit of the 
plague.” 

How many times has the city suffered from 
that scourge V ’ 

‘‘ Seventy. It is the price we pay for our 
close intercourse with the East. She shares 
with us her curses as well as her treasures. 
The first Crusaders brought it back with their 
spoils. There is hardly a Venetian family but 
has among its annals some tradition of tragedy 
connected with its ravages. Titian, painting 
grandly in his hundredth year, could not die 
until the plague struck him. Giorgione, they 
say, took it from the lips of his lady love. 
Strange to say, our own family has been spared, 
when, if tradition speaks the truth, we should 
have felt its heaviest fury.” 

His face was so dark that Tib did not ask 
him what he meant. They passed into the 
church and quietly watched the ceremony of 
lighting the tapers. Each pilgrim handed a 
wax candle to the attendant, who lighted it 
and placed it on the altar, until gradually the 
dusky place was all aglow. 


170 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Angelo handed a taper to the attendant and 
looked at Tib questioningly. ‘‘ I suppose that 
seems to you like idolatry,” he said. 

‘‘No,” she replied. “I was thinking of a 
poem I have always loved : 

“ ‘ Now the stars are lit in heaven 

We must light our lamps on earth. 

Every star a signal given 
From the God of our new birth, 

Every l9,mp an answer faint, 

Like the prayer of mortal saint.’ ” 

“ Thank you,” he said simply. “ Let us go 
before it is dark into the larger sacristy and 
see Tintoretto’s painting of ‘ The Marriage at 
Cana.’” 

This subject was a favorite of Paul Vero- 
nese’s, and the girls well remembered his two 
large paintings in the Louvre, “ The Marriage 
at Cana” and the “ Feast at the House of Simon 
the Leper,” and Tib recalled the pictures to 
their guide. “ It seems to me,” she said, 
“ with all due deference to your favorite mas- 
ter Tintoretto, that he can hardly have sur- 
passed Veronese in this subject, for here Vero- 
nese is on his own ground — luxury of appoint- 
ment, the physical enjoyment of the guests. 


A mmA. 


171 


sumptuous robes, fair women, and a general air 
of state, and the pride of position. If I remem- 
ber rightly, there were a hundred and thirty 
figures in ^ The Marriage at Cana,’ and yet 
there was no effect of crowding. There was 
room and to spare at that great banquet, where 
the table groaned with gold, and each guest 
was served as a king.” 

This picture of Tintoretto’s is very differ- 
ently treated,” Zanelli replied. “ Ruskin says 
it is perhaps the most perfect example which 
human art has produced of the utmost possible 
force and sharpness of shadow united with rich- 
ness of local color— color as rich as Titian’s, 
with light and shade as forcible as Rem- 
brandt’s. These are painter qualities rather 
than pictorial ones, though the picture does 
tell its story. See that woman in the fore- 
ground, stretching her cup across the table to 
show the wine in it to the astonished men op- 
posite her ? Ruskin thinks that the fourth of 
the female figures, counting from the Madonna, 
is intended for the bride, and that her face is 
the most beautiful that Tintoretto ever painted, 
with the exception of the Madonna in the 
‘ Flight into Egypt.’ ” 


172 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


They studied the j^ainting until the darkness 
came, and then they took a gondola at the 
church steps, and were rowed up the canal a lit- 
tle distance to watch the fresco or out-of-door 
celebration of the fete. 

It was far more gorgeous in the old days,’ ’ 
Angelo explained. Immense sums were 
expended by the city on regattas and illu- 
minations, and there was much rivalry between 
the two factions of the gondoliers, the blacks 
and the reds, while private individuals brought 
out their gala gondolas, gilded barges adorned 
with carvings and brocades, and manned by 
crews in beautiful and fantastic costumes.” 

The fresco this evening was a comparatively 
simple affair, consisting of fireworks on the 
Rialto. Several bouquets of rockets were sent 
up from the centre of the bridge, and then from 
under it a barge of light hashed into the middle 
of the stream. The barge was towed by a tug, 
which glided on so far in advance that it seemed 
to be moving of its own will. Four tall masts, 
from which fiuttered huge gonfalons, shot up 
as though by magic as the barge emerged from 
the arch, while in the centre of the boat a 
magical palm-tree opened like a huge umbrella. 



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A FBSTA. 


173 


Each of its Imndreds of pendulous fronds was 
tijDped with an electrical light, and the en- 
tire mechanism covered the musicians, who sat 
beneath, as with a canopy of blazing jewels. 
Their gondolier dexterously eluded the other 
small craft that were lying in wait for the first 
place, and followed in the wake next to the 
musicians’ barge. 

How enchanting it all is !” Tib exclaimed. 
‘ ‘ Some one has described such a f esta as this in 
a little poem, part of which I can remember ; 


“ ‘ With music from their windows booming 
Floats the voice of masque and measure, 

Through distant domes and marble piles, 

And hymns the jubilee of youth and pleasure. 

“ ‘ Between the ripple dimly plashing, 

And the dark roof looming high, 

Lost in the funereal sky. 

Like many-colored jewels flashing, 

Small lamps in loops and rosaries of Are, 

Verdant and blood-red, trembling and turning, 

Yellow, blue, in the deep water burning. 

From dark till dawning 

Set all aglow the wide concave. 

And splash and stain the marble and the nave.’ 

“ ‘ And high above the hum 

Swelled the thunder and the hoot 
Of the oboe and of viol, of the hautboy and the flute. 
And the roaring of the drum.’ ” 


174 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


With what zest the musicians sang that 
night ! All the old favorites — “ Bella Napoli,” 
‘‘ Funicoli, f unicola,” Margherita” and Santa 
Lucia,” and later Gordigianfs “ 0 Santissima 
Yergine.” 

The barge made its way ponderously down 
the canal. Beside the musicians they could see 
a gentleman richly dressed in the costume of 
the sixteenth century. He wore a mask, so 
that they could not guess at his identity ; but 
he gave directions to the singers from time to 
time, and they evidently sang as he requested. 

‘‘ It is some wealthy young fellow,” said the 
count, bound on a serenading expedition. 
You will see that he has subsidized the captain 
of the steamer, and he will stop where this 
young prince directs and serenade some lady. ” 

The event proved that the count had guessed 
correctly, for as they approached one of the 
stately palaces the masked gentleman called 
sharply, ‘‘ Scidr Stop !”) and the steamer 
came to a halt. The barge drifted forward 
slowly, and the gentleman snatched a guitar 
from one of the musicians, and himself sang, 
‘‘ Margherita,” the singers joining in the re- 
frain. The curtains of a window opening upon 


A FE8TA. 


175 


the balcony fluttered apart, a beautiful face 
peeped out, and a hand threw a bunch of white 
flowers far out into the stream — not quite far 
enough, however, for the masked singer to 
catch. The flowers fell into the water at a 
little distance from the barge, and all in silk 
and velvet as he was, the serenader sprang into 
the canal and waved the bouquet over his head 
with one hand while he caiight at the rope flung 
him from the barge with the other. 

‘^Daisies!” exclaimed Tib. “The lady’s 
name must be Margaret. What devotion !” 

Angelo’s lip curled. “ What a fool !” he 
said. 

“ Perhaps so, to spoil his gay suit, unless the 
sly rogue knows that the lady’s admiration is 
worth more to him than the price of his 
doublet. And even if you think the leap 
theatrical, the custom of serenading is a pretty 
one. We are too practical for it in America, 
and our young men are too afraid of appearing 
ridiculous.” 

“ It is ridiculous,” said Angelo. “ I cannot 
imagine myself being so infatuated as to make 
such a fool of myself.” 

“ That is because,” said Tib, “ you have 


176 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


never met any one whom you loved more than 
you do your own dignity.” 

The count made no reply ; and Tib asked, 
‘‘ What is the meaning of those cries which the 
gondoliers utter from time to time ? ‘ Scidr ’ is 

one of them.” 

‘‘ ‘ Scidr means ‘halt,’” Angelo replied; 
“ ^ stall ‘ look out ; I am coming ; ’ ^ %>r erne 
‘ I shall pass you.’ ” 

“ I shall always remember this festa of the 
Salute,” he said, after a pause. “I love the 
church ; it is one of the noblest examples of 
that style which Ruskin most unjustly despised 
— the Renaissance. I have a little poem which 
came to me in a mysterious way, which likens 
it to some mountain. Here it is in my pocket : 

“ ‘ Like some Greek temple pure aud grave, 

With pediment and architrave — ’ 

No, I see the author likens the mountain to a 
Greek temple ; but some way I remembered it 
as the Salute.” 

Tib and Winnie looked conscious, and the 
count held the envelope on which the poem had 
been written close to the gondola lamp and read 
the address on the reverse— “ Winifred De 


A FE8TA. 


177 


Witt.” Why, you wrote this !” he exclaimed, 
much surprised. 

No,’ ’ Winnie replied ; Tib scribbled it one 
morning on that scrap of paper and then lost 
it.” 

And you never wondered what had become 
of it ?” 

“ Certainly not,” Tib replied. “ It was not 
of enough consequence. I am glad, however, 
if it suggested the Salute to you, for it was the 
view from the balcony which called up the 
protest to Ruskin’s assertion that classical 
architecture was not poetic. ” 

The count was silent. He did not even ex- 
press the admiration he felt for the little poem, 
for the new insight he was constantly gaining 
into Tib’s capabilities was most disturbing to 
his preconceived ideas. 

They had reached their own landing ; but the 
count begged them to continue the trip, and 
Winnie ran in to see if Adelaide would join 
them. She was gone a long time, and the con- 
versation drifted to their old child-life, and Count 
Angelo asked : May I call you by your beauti- 
ful real name. Signori ta Nellie ? I have main- 
tained my boyish prejudice for your family 


178 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


name. I confess I do not like the name Smith, 
though it is a very favorite one with your coun- 
trymen. It is so hard for me to pronounce, 
and the little short name by which your friends 
call you I could not presume to use, and, indeed, 
I like it no better ; but the Signori ta Nellie fits 
you as the word lily suits the flower. It is 
perfect.” 

Angelo was not quite frank when he said this. 
Even the Signorita Nellie was not quite the 
name which he would have chosen. The old 
name which he had given her in the presump- 
tion of his childish ignorance— Nellie Zanelli— 
that to his mind was the only perfect name for 
her ; but that, he had told himself, he could 
never ask her to bear. The name had been too 
deeply disgraced by the crimes of his wicked 
ancestor, who had brought death to Venice and 
shame to his descendants, for him to ask any 
good woman to share its heritage. And yet 
all this seemed so far away in the past. Must 
generation after generation of innocent de- 
scendants suffer for his sin ? The face beside 
him was so sweet, so noble, the power that com- 
pelled him so subtle and irresistible, that a wild, 
reckless determination filled his heart. He 


A FESTA. 


179 


would be bound no longer by a dead past, but 
would put it out of liis thoughts and declare 
himself a free man. Her answer should decide 
whether he would tell her of his love. 

Tib could not guess the subject over which 
he was brooding, but she replied frankly : ‘‘We 
are certainlj^ too good friends to be formal. I 
have in my trunk the little bonbonniere which 
you gave me so long ago. Do you remember, 
you erased the first syllable of your name on 
the lid that it might read Nelli f ’ 

Tib did not look up, and did not see the look 
of despair which settled on Angelo’s face. 
Here was his answer indeed. His ancestor’s 
crimes leaped from the past to confront him 
just as his declaration was trembling on his 
lips. 

“ Nellie !” he exclaimed, “ no one has tast- 
ed those bonbons ? You are sure of it ?” 

“ Quite sure. You told me they were prob- 
ably medicine, and might be poisonous. You 
were very cautious even as a little boy.” 

“ Thank God !” he replied earnestly. “ I 
will tell you— I have much to tell you, Nellie, 
much that is very vitally important to me — ” 
But Winnie, who had obligingly delayed a 


180 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


long time, now brought down word that neither 
Adelaide nor she cared for the gondola trip that 
evening, and Tib accordingly bade the count 
good-night and entered the house with Winnie. 

‘‘ But when can I tell you Angelo asked 
eagerly. 

“To-morrow morning on the balcony,” Tib 
replied ; and Winnie could not forbear pinch- 
ing her arm as they mounted the stairs to- 
gether. “ Ah ! ha !” she teased, “ there is 
something to be told, and we make appoint- 
ments on the balcony. I must be there to 
chaperone you, my dear.” 

“ I shall be very glad of your company,” Tib 
replied ; but there was a demure smile about 
the corners of her mouth which made Winnie 
sceptical. “ I have just come across a pretty 
poem on serenading in Venice,” she said, and 
she read it aloud to Tib as the latter combed 
her long hair. 

“ When along the light ripple the far serenade 
Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid, 

She may open the window that looks on the stream, 

She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream ; 

Half in words, half in music it pierces the gloom. 

‘ I am coming, stall, but you know not for whom, 

Stall, not for whom I ’ 


A FESTA. 


181 


“ Now the tones become clearer, you hear more and more 
IIow the water divided returns on the oar. 

Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair ? 

Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare ? 

Oh 1 they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view, 

‘ I am passing, preme, but I stay not for you ! 

Premt, not for you ! ’ 

“ Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear, 

Then awake not, fair sleeper, believe he is here ; 

For the young and the loving no sorrow endures. 

If to day be another’s, to-morrow is yours ! 

May the next time you listen your fancy be true, 

‘ I am coming, scidv, and for you and to you, 

Scidr, and to you !’ ” 

As Winnie ceased reading, the sound of dis- 
tant music drifted in at the open window. It 
was the barge returning. It would have been 
so easy for the count to have waylaid it and 
made the musicians serenade them. It seemed 
to Winnie that, after what had been said, if he 
really cared to give Tib pleasure this idea would 
have occurred to him ; and throwing her arm 
around Tib, she drew her to the window. But 
the man at the helm of the little steamer shout- 
ed pi' erne 1'^^ to the gondoliers in front of the 
palace, and the barge, with its gay lights and 
music, had passed on. 


CHAPTER XI. 


VIOLANTE — TWO OK A BALCONY. 


*ATE hours were the excep- 
tion for Tib and Winnie, 
and it was not surpris- 
ing that they overslept 
the next morning, and 
were only awakened by 
Adelaide knocking at their 
door and demanding whether 
they were going with Profes- 
sor Waite to paint Violante 
in her picturesque home. 

‘‘There!” exclaimed Tib, 
“ I had forgotten all about 
Violante.” 

“ So had I,” yawned Winnie. “ Suppose we 
do not go.” 

“ I would not miss her for anything,” Tib re- 
plied, hurrying with her toilet. 

“ But how about that appointment on the 
balcony for a chat with Count Zanelli 




■ • ■ 





A SHAPELY FIGURE IN A BLACK SHAWL. 








VIOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY. 


183 


I am sorry, but he will excuse me. I can 
see him any time, and I want to read the let- 
ters that Viol ante promised to show me. I can 
see Professor Waite putting his sketching kit 
into the gondola. I haven’t even time to write 
a note, of explanation. It is too bad ; but I 
don’t believe Count Angelo will be vexed.” j 

‘‘ No fear of that, for it is too late for me to 
think of getting ready ; so I will keep your ap- 
pointment for you and be your letter of apol- 
ogy*” 

“ How good of you!” Tib exclai^ied grate- 
fully ; and, with a parting kiss, she was 
gone. ' 

I have missed a chance at painting the best 
model in Venice,” Winnie grumbled to herself r, 
and indeed it was a privilege to paint from 
Violante. 

Tib had caught sight of her first on her way 
to the Church of Santa Maria Formosa, whither 
she was going to see Palmar Vecchio’s master- 
piece, the noble “St. Barbara.” Her atten- 
tion was drawn to the girl simply as a shapely 
figure, a black shawl draping the head and 
shoulders and silhouetting the dignified car- 
riage against the sunny walls as she flitted 


184 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


along in front of them like a guiding will-o’- 
the-wisp. 

‘‘ How well she composes !” Winnie had said. , 
‘‘ I wish she would stand still and let me sketch 
her, leaning over the parapet of that bridge, or 
simply making the blackest black in any one 
of those shifting street views.” 

‘‘ I wonder whether her face is as interesting 
as her figure, ” Tib queried ; but she had no op- 
portunity of judging, for the girl never looked 
back, and kept ahead of them all the way, glid- 
ing into the church and losing herself in its 
gloom. 

Once within, they speedily forgot her in their 
admiration of the ‘‘St. Barbara,” the central 
figure of a large i)icture painted as a votive 
offering for the bombardieri or artillerists, 
Santa Barbara, their guide-book told them, 
was the patroness of soldiers, who came here 
to worship at her shrine. It was easy to see 
how St. Sebastian, who was in the same pic- 
ture, and looked as though he had served as a 
target for a corps of crack arquebusiers, might 
have been adopted as their patron ; but why the 
gentle Barbara should have been represented 
with cannon at her feet, a bow in hand, and a 


yiOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY, 


185 


spiky iron crown on her fair head was quite 
incomprehensible. The legend of her life ex- 
plained her attribute— a tower with three win- 
dows. She was the daughter of Diascorus, of 
Heliopolis, who shut her up in a tower so that 
she should not attract suitors by her beauty. 
She was converted by a disciple of Origen, sent 
to her as a physician. The fact of her conver- 
sion to Christianity became known to her father 
when some repairs were being made in her 
tower, Santa Barbara wishing three windows, 
‘‘as a symbol of the Trinity,” to be inserted 
instead of two. 

The girls read the extracts from various 
authors in praise of this picture and agreed 
with them all. 

“ An almost unique presentation of a hero- 
woman, standing in calm preparation for mar- 
tyrdom, with the expression of a mind filled 
with serious conviction,” wrote George Eliot. 
“ Her shape is grandiose and queenly ; her 
beauty healthy, serene, and plump. The 
glance, the massive hair, the full neck and 
throat are all regal ; her hands are those of a 
queen,” say Crowe and Cavalcascelle. Mrs. 
Jameson gives one of the best descriptions : 


186 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘ She wears a tunic or robe of a rich warm 
brown, with a mantle of crimson ; and a white 
veil is twisted in her diadem among the tresses 
of her pale golden hair. I never saw a com- 
bination of color at once so soft, so sober, and 
so splendid. Cannon are at her feet, and her 
tower is seen behind. Beneath, in front of the 
altar, is a marble bas-relief of her martyrdom ; 
she lies headless on the ground, and fire from 
heaven destroys the executioners.” 

Winnie felt that Yriarte gave the best sum- 
ming up of all when he wrote : She has the 
noble serenity of a saint who is yet a woman.” 

“ We should have come here at the fete of 
this church in February, ” whispered Winnie ; 
“ it is connected with that pretty legend of the 
‘ Brides of Venice,’ ” and she pointed to the his- 
torical information in their guide-book that 
“ on the 21st of February, 944, a number of 
Venetian maidens who had gone to be married 
at St. Pietro, in Gastello, taking with them 
their dowries, were carried off by a sudden in- 
road of pirates. They were pursued and van- 
quished by the Venetians, owing to the brave 
cabinet-makers of Santa Maria Formosa, who 
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VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY. 187 

visit their church on that anniversary every 
year. ‘ But if it rains ? ’ said the doge. ‘ We 
will give you hats to cover you. ’ ‘ But if I am 

thirsty ? ’ ‘We will give you to drink.’ Hence 
dated the Festa delle Marie, which was always 
held in this church on February 2d. First 
twelve and afterward three poor maidens were 
always dowered here by the city on that day, 
when the doge always came in state to the 
church and received from the priests two hats 
of gilt straw, two flasks of malvasia, and two 
oranges. ” 

Leaving the church, the girls paused at the 
left of its west front to admire a beautiful 
Gothic canopy of the fourteenth century over 
the entrance to a bridge called the Ponte del 
Paradise, and then directed Tribolo to take 
them home, for Professor Waite had invited 
them to paint in his studio from one of the 
handsomest of Venetian models who was to 
pose for him. As Tribolo moored their gondola 
at the palace door, they saw passing up the 
staircase the same black- draped flgure which 
had preceded them on their way to the church ; 
and when they entered the sfcudio she had 
thrown back her shawl and was taking her place 


188 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


on the model’s stand. Tib uttered an exclama- 
tion of surprise. 

“ Why, it is St. Barbara herself !” 

The girl smiled, evidently flattered. 

‘‘You see the resemblance then f ’ said the 
professor. “ I think it rather striking myself, 
and am making a study of her in the pose of 
the Barbara. Other artists have done so before 
me— for Yiolante draws the attention of her 
patrons to the resemblance if they do not dis- 
cover it for themselves. She comes of a long 
line of artists’ models, and claims that the 
model that sat for Palma Yecchio’s masterpiece 
was her ancestress. It may be so. There is no 
harm in believing it.” 

The girl’s quick ear had caught the word 
Palma Yecchio, and she smiled again and said 
in Italian : “ Yiolante, daughter of Palma, my 
many- times great-grandmother.” 

“What! daughter as well as model?” Tib 
asked. 

The girl nodded confldently. “ Palma Yec- 
chio’s daughter Yiolante was very beautiful ; 
her father painted her ; Giorgione, Titian, all 
the great artists of that time painted her, and 
whoever painted her loved her ; but she loved 


VIOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY. 


189 


only Giorgione, and slie killed liim, for she had 
the plague and he kissed her, and of that kiss 
he died.” 

“ There is a tradition to that effect,” Profes- 
sor Waite assented ; but it is almost too ro- 
mantic to be true. ” 

It was sad and yet sweet that the two lovers 
should die together, ” Tib said. 

But they did not die at the same time,” 
the girl replied. ‘‘Yiolante recovered; she 
was cured by a magician — that is, by a Vene- 
tian physician who was burned as a wizard — for 
it was believed that he cured his patients by 
the black art at the expense of their souls. A 
friar who had taken Giorgione’s dying confes- 
sion had sprinkled him with holy water, and 
so his soul was safe ; and this man, while pre- 
tending to be engaged in prayer, watched the 
physician, and was convinced, from his strange 
proceedings, that he meant harm and not good 
to his patient.” 

That illustrious Yiolante is most famous,” 
said the professor, not because she may have 
been Palma’s daughter or Giorgione’s love, 
which is hardly possible, but because Titian 
painted her. There are no such superb physi- 


190 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


cal types among the Venetian ladies of to- 
day ; perhaps there were few at that time ; at 
any rate, Titian was fortunate to have found 
her, and she to have been found by Titian.” 

Violante seemed a little piqued that Profes- 
sor Waite should have doubted an 3^ part of her 
family history. ‘‘Yes,” she replied, “Titian 
painted her oftenest, for he lived longest. We 
have a sketch he gave her, and letters — many 
letters— from all of those artists. I am not 
lying ; the 3"oung ladies can see for themselves 
— lette?s from Titian and two very long letters 
from Titian’s son Orazio. We have been offered 
a great deal of money for them ; but we know 
better than to sell them. The young ladies can 
see them, however, if they will come to my 
poor house.” 

“Your house is not a poor one,” Professor 
Waite replied. “ I know it very well ; its court 
is one of the most picturesque places for sketch- 
ing in Venice. We will all descend upon you 
next Wednesday.” 

And so the appointment was made which Tib 
was so anxious to keep, and Winnie was left 
for the interview with Count Angelo. “Just 
as if,” Winnie said to herself, rather crossly, 


VIOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY. 


191 


‘‘ it was of no more consequence and one 
requiring less personal attention than an ap- 
pointment with a dressmaker.” 

Winnie was vexed with Tib’s apparent in- 
difference, and because, in all the intercourse 
between her and Angelo, intimate as it had be- 
come, there was no hint of love-making. It 
seemed to her that they were admirably fitted 
for one another ; and she contrived many little 
plots to throw them together, giving them beau- 
tiful opportunities for uninterrupted conversa- 
tion ; and she raged inwardly when she ascer- 
tained how poorly they were improved. 

Was anything so maddening?” she com- 
plained to Adelaide one afternoon. Here I 
made up a fictitious headache and denied my- 
self the pleasure of a trip to San Gfiorgio yes- 
terday on purpose that the count should have 
Tib all to himself, and what did that provoking 
girl do ? Simply insisted that his mother should 
go with them.” 

‘^Just like her,” Adelaide replied; ‘‘and 
last Thursday, when I really had some hopes — 
for Tib was sitting quite alone in the tented 
divan and the count made his way straight to 
her the moment he entered the room — you 


192 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


should have seen how I labored to keep people 
away from them. I even entertained John Nash 
for an hour, for the good, stupid fellow was 
possessed to join them, and I was simply obliged 
to order Professor Waite to take the contessa 
out upon the balcony, for each was persistently 
determined to interrupt the tete-d-tete. It is too 
vexatious. The recipe for a happy marriage 
used to be : ‘ xi young woman. A J^oung man. 
Congenial tastes. Opportunity.’ Now, here 
are all the ingredients ; why don’t they fall in 
love in the good old-fashioned way 

They are in love,” Winnie replied, “ only 
the blessed innocents haven’t found it out. 
They have too many congenial tastes, and are 
so taken up with discussing them and discover- 
ing new ones that they haven’t time for any- 
thing else. Somebody ought to enlighten them 
before those golden hours of opportunity are 
gone.” 

It was with this benevolent intention that 
Winnie met Angelo on the balcony that morn- 
ing. She was surprised to see that he looked 
haggard and unhappy, for he had passed a 
sleepless night, vainly puzzling over the old 
papers regarding his ancestor’s trial. 


VIOLANTE—TWO OK A BALCONY. 193 


When Tib had referred to the bonbonniere., the 
conviction had struck him like a blow that he 
had been letting himself drift all these xdeasant 
days as though he had a right to win her 
friendship, and had recklessly disregarded the 
chains by which he was held. It was time for 
him to tear himself away while he had any will 
power left. To strengthen his resolve, on bid- 
ding the girls good-night he went at once to the 
alchemist’s laboratory and plunged into a study 
of the record of his trial. If Giovanni Zanelli 
had really committed the crime for which he 
was convicted, Angelo felt that his punishment 
was just. He had never studied the evidence 
closely, fearing that the slight hope which he 
still cherished of his ancestor’ s innocence might 
be crushed forever ; but now he determined to 
face the truth. 

Only one witness had appeared in behalf of 
the accused, Orazio Vecelli, the son of Titian, 
the great painter. Orazio had declared at the 
peril of his life that he had studied medicine 
with Dr. Zanelli, and had found him a most 
humane and honorable man, devoted to the 
saving of life, and that it was impossible that 
he could have committed any of the crimes 


194 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


with which he was charged. He asserted that 
the stranger who had come from Constantino- 
ple, and was supposed to be the Sultan’s emis- 
sary, was a Greek physician named Chryso- 
larus, who had come to learn Dr. Zanelli’s se- 
cret of treating the plague, and having learned 
it had fled away in fear of his life on the arrest 
of his master. That he, Orazio, being too 
young a pupil, had not learned this secret ; but 
if Chrysolarus could be found he could dis- 
close it. 

Orazio’s testimony, though well meaning, 
really proved nothing except that Dr. Zanelli 
was a man to command the love and respect of 
those who knew him. Another prominent 
name had flgured in the trial —that of Jacopo 
Sansovino, the architect. He stood boldly forth 
as the friend of the accused, and labored with 
all his might, though fruitlessly, to obtain an 
acquittal. Angelo turned hopelessly from this 
study. If these dear friends had been unable 
to prove the innocence of Dr. Zanelli, how 
could he, at this distance of time, hope to 
discover any new light ? The fact remained 
that he had been tried and found guilty, and 
that in all these years nothing had been dis- 


VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY. 


195 


covered to prove that his sentence had not been 
just. 

Angelo therefore kept his appointment with 
Tib weighed down by a feeling of profound de- 
spair. When Winnie met him and explained 
that she was the bearer of her friend’s apologies 
he was really grateful. 

‘‘ It does not matter at all,” he said hastily — 
“ that is, you will do quite as well. Did the 
Signorita Nellie send me a bonhonniere by 
you r 

“No,” Winnie replied, much surprised by 
his evident relief. “ What bonhonniere 

“It is not of the slightest consequence — I 
mean that is the only thing of any consequence. 
I hope the Signorita Nellie will return me the 
bonhonniere, I have particular reasons for 
wanting it.” 

“ And is this all you wished to say to Tib at 
this time V 

“ Yes, it is all I could have said to her ; but 
I can ask your advice. I can tell you what I 
am not at liberty to tell her. I love the Sig- 
norifca Nellie.” 

“ Indeed ! And why, may I ask, can you 
not tell her so 


196 


. WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘ Because with that declaration I cannot ask 
her to be my wife.” 

Winnie drew herself up proudly. “ Then 
you are quite right in not telling her that you 
love her. But I do not understand why you 
cannot ask her to marry you.” 

‘‘No, you cannot understand ; and I am 
ashamed to tell you.. It is a question of ances- 
try ; it is because I am a Zanelli.” 

Winnie’s eyes flashed fire. She entirely mis- 
understood the count. She thought he meant 
to imply that because he was of noble descent 
he could not marry a girl without a title. “ I 
always did despise dukes and earls, counts 
and barons,” she said to herself. “ Nobility ! 
pooh ! there is nothing noble about them. I 
wouldn’t change my Van’s little finger for the 
whole crew ; but I did think that Angelo Za- 
nelli was made of better stuff.” 

“ I do not share your point of view. Count 
Zanelli,” she replied with fine scorn. “I do 
not see any difference in your ancestry. So far 
as I know it, you are both descended from hon- 
orable people ; and even if you were not, I do 
not see that your dead-and-gone ancestors, with 
all their nobility and grandeur, all their pride 


VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY. 


197 


and wealth, all of their honors and distinctions, 
or even their virtues or their sins, have any- 
thing to do with you two who are living in the 
actual present. To me ancestry is no more than 
a tapestry background, just as shadowy and 
unreal. The vital question is, what you are 
personally, and no nobility conferred in past 
ages can make you noble. Count Angelo, if you 
yourself are little and base, just as you are not 
responsible for the sins of any of those illus- 
trious signors.” 

Winnie had expected that the count would be 
crushed by this magnificent speech, and she 
was much surprised when he seized her hand, 
exclaiming : “ Do you think so ? do you really 
think so1 Would the Signori ta Nellie have 
spoken as you have done 

I am sure that the fact that you are the 
Count Zanelli has never had the slightest bear- 
ing on her opinion of you.” 

‘‘ I thank you ! I thank you with all my 
heart ! You do not know what a weight you 
have taken from my mind.” 

Winnie was more and more mystified ; it 
seemed to her that Count Angelo was going 
insane. 


198 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


I confess I do not understand you at all,” 
she said coldly. 

“ No,’' he replied more calmly, you do not 
understand the situation ; and perhaps when 
you do you will not speak as you have done. 
My inheritance from my ancestors is one of dis- 
grace. Gladly would I exchange my name and 
title for that of the meanest peasant of honest 
lineage. I am descended from a man who was 
executed here in Venice for his crimes.” 

Winnie had not suspected anything of this 
kind, and the shock staggered her. Was he 
really a criminal ?” she asked. 

‘ ‘ Ah ! that I do not know. It seems to me 
that it was not proved.” 

‘‘ Then, if I were you, I would leave no stone 
unturned to clear his memory.” 

“ Then you think that the disgrace of being 
executed is nothing if the sentence were un- 
just?” 

How can any one think otherwise ? The 
disgrace lies in the crime, not in the punish- 
ment.” 

“ And if I could prove that my ancestor were 
really innocent, could I go to the Signorita 
Nellie and ask her to be the wife of a man de- 


VIOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY. 


199 


scended from one wlio died under the hand of 
the executioner, and whose body was burned 
by the Church 

‘‘ And even if you cannot prove him inno- 
cent,” Winnie cried, ‘‘go just the same. I do 
not take back a word I have said. What does 
his guilt matter to you f ’ 

“ Much, ” Angelo replied, shaking his head 
sadly. “ If I were the descendant of a leper I 
would not be free to marry. I would fear that 
the terrible disease would break out at any 
time. If I am of a race morally diseased, must 
I not fear that I too have that moral taint 

“No,” Winnie replied ; “ I do not believe in 
heredity to such an extent as that. Taints die 
out in time, just as infections cannot last for- 
ever. It is as little likely that you could feel 
an impulse to crime as that the plague will re- 
visit Venice in these modern times, when we 
understand so much better the laws of life. 
But, mind you, what I have said in the way of 
encouragement is only my view of the case so 
far as you personally are concerned. I know 
nothing whatever of Tib’s feelings in the matter ; 
and if I knew, should not tell you.” 

“ And I shall never ask you,” Angelo re- 


200 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


plied ; “ and I shall ask her myself just as soon 
as I can prove that the name which I shall offer 
her is an honorable one ; and meantime I trust 
you to keep my secret.’’ 

Winnie nodded approvingly. ‘‘ Count An- 
gelo, you are more really noble than I thought. 
I shall respect your confidence sacredly, and 
meantime I wish you Godspeed in your quest.” 

When Tib returned at noon she found Win- 
nie alone upon the balcony. What did Count 
Angelo wish ?” she asked. ‘‘Was he vexed 
because I did not keep my promise V ’ 

“Not at all ; he said it was of no conse- 
quence whatever ; he merely wished to ask 
you for a certain horibonniere.^^ 

A shade of annoyance crossed Tib’s face. “ I 
wonder why he wishes me to return it. He 
gave it to me when we were children. Did he 
give any reason why he wanted it back 
“ None whatever.” 

“ Well, he shall have it ; and I hope, Win- 
nie, that this little incident relieves your mind 
of any suspicion that Count Angelo cares for 
me in the slightest degree, or that there ever 
could be any romance between us.” 

Winnie smiled, but said nothing. 


VIOLANTE—TWO ON A BALCONY. 


201 


Are you convinced ? Answer me !” 

‘‘ Convinced ! Oh, perfectly.” 

“ Then stop smiling in that foolish way, and 
never allude to the subject again. I have had 
such an interesting day. You really have 
missed a great deal. There is the sketch that I 
made of Violante. She is a lace-maker, and 
here is a pair of cuffs of real Venetian point 
which I have brought you.” 

‘‘You extravagant girl ! Why, they match 
the collar I bought at Burano.” 

“ Yes ; that is why 1 was tempted ; and do 
you know why they match it ? Violante never 
took her eyes off of that collar when she was pos- 
ing here the other day. I wondered why she 
stared at you in that fascinated way. It was 
the pattern, not your face, that attracted her, 
and she made the cuffs from memory.” 

“ And the letters ?” 

“ The letters were in old Italian, which I 
could not read very well ; but I believe they 
are genuine. There is one from the architect 
Sansovino and two long ones from Titian’s 
son Orazio, and what is rather singular is that 
in each the name Zanelli appeared. I wish I 
knew what Zanelli it was. ” 


CHAPTER XII. 


A KAT OF LIGHT — THE RENAISSANCE PALACES. 

HOUGH Angelo had 
spoken of the possibil- 
ity of proving the inno- 
cence of his ancestor, 
he could see no way of 
doing so. He consult- 
ed one of the most ex- 
pert lawyers in Venice, 
who agreed to look into 
the matter thoroughly, 
and to advise him if 
there was anything 
which he could do. While he waited for the 
opinion of this man, Angelo felt that he must 
occupy himself intensely or that he would go 
mad ; and he applied himself more unremitting- 
ly than ever to his work on Venice. Only a 
few chapters remained to be written, and these 
were to be devoted to the last great period of 



.1 RAY OF LIGHT. 


203 


Venetian architecture, that of the Renaissance. 
He buried himself in his study and plunged 
into his work. 

As he arranged the illustrations for the first 
part of the book, their merit grew upon him— 
not the technical excellence alone — the neat- 
ness of the drawing, the exactness of measure- 
ment and proportions, betraying an educated 
eye, while the perfection of line showed a cer- 
tainty of touch and facility of practice, and 
also an artistic freedom in the handling, a per- 
ception in the choice of subject, and a poetic 
treatment, the gloomy history of certain build- 
ings being suggested by choice of lighting, so 
as to bring out their salient characteristics. 
The artist had silhouetted massire forms darkly 
against moonlit skies, and had given a touch of 
tenderness in clinging vines to decayed gran- 
deur, thus bringing out just the important 
points and artfully suppressing the inconse- 
quent and the incongruous. 

John Nash has more than the mere skill of 
a good draughtsman,” he said to himself ; ‘‘he 
is a poet and a true artist. It is time that his 
incognito should be given up.’ ’ And the count 
wrote as follows : 


204 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


My dear Friend : I have respected your 
desire to remain unknown, not only refraining 
from endeavoring to penetrate the flimsy dis- 
guise which you have thrown over your work, 
but long after you betrayed your secret I have 
hidden from you the fact that I knew the iden- 
tity of the artist who furnished me with such 
beautiful illustrations. But the time has come 
on both sides for frank confession. Our busi- 
ness relations demand this. Our publisher in- 
sists that you shall have the credit for your 
work, and that the book shall have the prestige 
of your name. 

‘‘ Let us, then, end this pretence of an incog- 
nito. The last chapters can be completed much 
more successfully with mutual help. Let us 
consult each other, visit places of interest to- 
gether, and advise each other in regard to the 
incidents and places which it is best to treat. 
Meet me, therefore, at Professor Waite’s studio 
to-morrow. Until then and always I remain, 
with the highest admiration for your talent, 
your obliged friend and servitor, 

‘‘Angelo Zanelli.” 


The count sealed this letter and sent it di- 


A RAY OF LIGHT. 


205 


rectly to Jolm Nash, who was stupefied with 
surprise, but carried it to Professor Waite for 
explanation. The professor laughed heartily 
and divulged the secret. ‘ ^ The count is right, ’ ’ 
he said ; the joke has been carried far enough. 
Ifc is time for an explanation all around. As 
you see, this letter begins simply ^ My dear 
friend.’ I will enclose it in a new envelope ad- 
dressed to Miss Smith, and she can imagine 
that Zanelli has guessed the truth, and we will 
enjoy the denouement A'' 

Tib did so understand the letter, and kept the 
appointment. As the count entered the room 
he bowed to her with grave courtesy. I ex- 
pected to find our friend John Nash here,” he 
said as he looked about the room. 

‘‘ Then have I mistaken your appointment ?” 
Tib asked, unfolding his letter, which the count 
recognized at once, while an expression of blank 
astonishment swept over his face. 

‘^Did you? — are you? — no, it cannot be,” 
he exclaimed, turning helplessly to Professor 
Waite, who repliM : 

‘‘ Acknowledge the joke. Count Zanelli. 
Miss Smith is the artist of the pen-and-ink 
drawings which you have admired so heartily.” 


206 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Angelo stammered his apologies, which Tib 
accepted graciously, though Winnie mischiev- 
ously assured him that it would be long before 
he heard the last of his mistake. Angelo hardly 
heard Winnie’s jibes. He had not intended to 
allow himself the privilege of Tib’s sweet com- 
panionship until he could ask for a still higher 
boon ; but tricky Fate had forced it upon him, 
and he could but accept it. His gondola was 
waiting at the door for an excursion to which 
he had intended to invite John Nash. He had 
brought a number of books which he intended 
to look over with him, and there was nothing 
for him to do but to invite Tib’s attention to 
them. 

I might have guessed,” he said, ‘‘ as they 
seated themselves at the large table, ‘‘ that the 
writer of the lines on Renaissance architecture 
which I liked so much knew something of it 
practically.” 

“ Very little,” Tib replied. ‘‘ I have read 
Ruskin of course, and I could but feel that his 
scorn of the style was unjust. And I wish you 
would tell me why he was so prejudiced.” 

“ Ruskin’s aversion to Renaissance architec- 
ture,” the count explained, ‘‘was based on 


A RAT OF LIGHT. 


207 


what that architecture expresses, and the two 
elements which he feels most keenly in its spirit 
are Pride and Infidelity. It is the ‘ architec- 
ture which most nearly becomes a science, ’ and 
Puskin feels that in doing so it becomes less 
of an art. He asserts too broadly that the 
one main purpose of the Renaissance artists 
was to show how much they knew. ‘ All other 
architectures, ’ he declares, ‘ have something in 
them that common men can enjoy— quaint 
fancy, rich ornament, bright color, something 
that shows a sympathy with men of ordinary 
minds and hearts. But the Renaissance is 
rigid, cold, inhuman. Whatever excellence it 
has is refined, high trained, and deeply erudite 
— a kind which the architect well knows no 
common mind can taste.’ He proclaims, ^ You 
cannot feel my work unless you study Vitru- 
vius. I am a learned man. All the pleasure 
you can have in anything I do is in its rigid 
formalism, its perfect finish, its cold tranquil- 
lity. I do not work for the vulgar, only for the 
men of the Academy and the court. ’ 

The pride which the Renaissance architec- 
ture displayed, according to our critic, was not 
alone the pride of the architect in his science. 


208 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


but a baser kind of pride as well, that of 
state, for the architect ministered to the pride 
of his patron. Renaissance architecture he 
feels was full of insult to the poor in its every 
line. ‘ It would not be built of the materials at 
the. poor man’s hand ; it would not roof itself 
with thatch or shingle and black oak beams ; 
it would not wall itself with rough stone or 
brick ; it would not pierce itself with small 
windows wherever they were needed ; it would 
not niche itself wherever there was room for it 
in the street corners. It would be of hewn 
stone ; it would have its windows, and its doors, 
and its stairs, and its pillars in lordly order and 
of stately size ; it would have its wings, and its 
corridors, and its halls, and its gardens as if all 
the earth were its own. But it understood the 
luxury of the body : the terraced and scented 
and grottoed garden, with its trickling foun- 
tains and slumbrous shades ; the spacious hall 
and lengthened corridor for the summer heat ; 
the well-closed windows and perfect fittings 
and furniture for defence against the cold ; and 
the soft picture and frescoed wall and roof.’ 
But this modern luxury or comfort Ruskin 
contemns in comparison with the ‘ twisted 


A RAY OF LIGHT. 


209 


traceries, and deep-wrought foliage, and burn- 
ing (stained glass) casements of Gothic windows, 
when the tapestries swayed in the wind in the 
baron’s hall.’ ” 

All that sounds very romantic,” Tib com- 
mented, but it does not keep pace with the 
march of civilization, which demands comfort, 
and sanitation, and elegance rather than bar- 
baric picturesqueness.” 

‘‘You have the idea exactly,” Angelo re- 
plied ; “ and Ruskin could not deny this, or 
refuse the tribute of a certain appreciation of 
the Renaissance style. Listen to what he wrote 
of the Grimani palace : 

“ ‘ Of all the buildings in Venice later in date 
than the final additions to the Ducal Palace, 
the noblest, beyond all question, is the Post 
Office (now the Court of Appeals), still known 
to the gondolier by its ancient name, the Casa 
Grimani. It is composed of three stories, of the 
Corinthian order, at once simple, delicate, and 
sublime ; but on so colossal a scale that the 
three-storied palaces on its right and left 
only reach to the cornice which marks the 
level of its first fioor. Nor is the finish of 
its details less notable than the grandeur of 


210 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


their scale. There is not an erring line nor 
a mistaken proportion thronghont its noble 
front ; the decoration is sparing but delicate ; 
the first story simpler than the rest in that it 
has pilasters instead of shafts ; but all with 
Corinthian capitals rich in leafage and fruited 
delicately ; the rest of the Avails fiat and smooth, 
and the mouldings sharp and shalloAv, so that 
the bold shafts look like crystals of beryl run- 
ning through a rock of quartz. This palace is 
the principal type at Venice, and one of the 
best in Europe of the central architecture of 
the Renaissance schools — that carefully studied 
and perfectly executed architecture to which 
those schools owe their principal claims to our 
respect, which became the model of most of the 
important works subsequently produced by civ- 
ilized nations.’ ” 

What do you consider the finest Renais- 
sance building in Venice Tib asked. 

‘‘I agree with Hare,” Angelo replied, ‘‘in 
thinking that the Libreria Vecchia, on the west 
side of the Piazzetta, is the finest building of 
the sixteenth century in Venice. It is the mas- 
terpiece of Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, in 
1536, and is mentioned by Aretino as ‘ super lore 


A RAT OF LIGHT, 


211 


alV inmdia.'^ The foundation of the library 
was the collection of Petrarch, who came to 
settle in Venice in 1529, and made ‘ St. Mark 
the heir of his library.’ You must see the 
great hall. It is very handsome, and contains 
X)aintings by Paul Veronese and two great 
works of Tintoretto — ‘ The Body of St. Mark 
Stolen from the Saracens ’ and ‘ St. Mark Res- 
cuing a Sailor. ’ Between the windows are a 
row of philosophers, which Ruskin describes as 
the finest thing of the kind in Europe. Ad- 
joining the palace and facing the lagoon is the 
Zecca, or mint, also built by Sansovino. It 
gave its name to the zecchino or sequin, the 
favorite coin of the republic, of the same value 
as the ducat, which derived its name from the 
word ducatus (duchy).” 

‘‘ When Shy lock laments his lost ducats, I 
always wondered how much they were worth 
in our money, ” said Tib. 

About six shillings now, but nine in the 
time of Shakespeare.” 

‘‘ Tell me more, please, about Sansovino. 
He was the chief architect of the Renaissance, 
was he not V ’ 

Hardly. We must concede that honor to 


212 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Bramante, who began St. Peter’s at Rome, and 
built the great galleries of the Vatican ; but he 
never came to Venice, and perhaps Sansovino 
would not have done so if he had not been 
driven away by the sack of Rome. Fortunate 
it was for our city that he sought refuge here. 
He was first employed in restoring the cu^jola 
of San Marco, which he did so successfully that 
he was given a governmental position with a 
house and a salary. Then he turned his atten- 
tion to beautifying the Piazza. He turned 
out the market, with its butchers’ and green- 
grocers’ stalls, built the library and fa§ade 
of the Procurazie and the classic Colonnade 
which gives the Piazza its distinction. Many 
of the palaces which he built are still stand- 
ing. I want to take you to the Palazzo Del- 
fino, the Palazzo Moro, the Palazzo Garzoni, 
the Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Grande, and the 
Palazzo Tiepolo. His architecture was all 
good construction. It was Palladio who built 
fa§ades which were only masks, whose digni- 
fied exterior did not express the real ar- 
rangement of the petty stories which they 
concealed.” 

‘‘ Then that is why the term Palladian archi- 


A RAT OF LIGHT. 


213 


lecture has come to mean something very gran- 
diose, but not sincere.” 

Exactly. The Church of the Eedentore is 
the best example of Palladio’ s style. I would 
like to show you the difference between the 
buildings of these two architects, and you will 
understand then why Euskin disliked the later 
Eenaissance, with its overloading of meaning- 
less ornament, and why I admire the earlier 
period, with its severe classicism.” 

And so it came about that their intimacy was 
strengthened, and that the count’s resolutions 
to hold himself quite aloof were swept away. 
Everything and everybody seemed to conspire 
to throw them together. They visited not only 
Sansovino’s palaces, but others of this period — 
the Palazzo Baffo, in the Campo St. Maurizio, 
decorated by Paiil Veronese ; the Palazzo Mo- 
cenigo, where Lord Byron lived ; the Yendra- 
mini Palace, a magnificent specimen of the 
Eenaissance style and beautifully restored. 
Euskin speaks of it as ‘ ‘ well maintained and 
noticeable as having a garden beside it rich 
with evergreens and decorated by gilded rail- 
ings, and white statues that cast long streams 
of snowy reflection down into the deep water. ” 


214 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Many titled personages have occupied the Yen- 
dramini Palace, but its noblest guest was Rich- 
ard Wagner, who died there in 1883. 

The Palazzos Papadopoli and Corner Spinelli 
were both good examples of the style ; but, 
after the Grimani, Tib liked best the Palazzo 
Pesaro. These Renaissance palaces were fre- 
quently richly frescoed. Tib visited several 
whose interiors might have served Howells for 
this description of one which he does not name : 

‘‘We entered its coolness and dampness, and 
wandered up the wide marble staircase, past the 
vacant niches of departed statuary, and came 
on the third floor to a grand portal, and we 
were aware that we stood upon the threshold of 
our ruinous noble’s great banqueting hall, 
where he used to give his magnificent feste da 
hallo. Lustrissimo was long gone, with all his 
guests, but there in the roof were the amazing 
frescoes of Tiepolo’s school which had smiled 
down on them as now they smiled on us ; great 
piles of architecture, airy tops of palaces swim- 
ming in summer sky, and wantoned over by a 
joyous populace of divinities of the lovelier 
sex, that had nothing but their loveliness to 
clothe them and keep them afloat ; the whole 



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A RAY OF LIGHT. 


215 


grandiose and superb beyond the effect of 
words, and luminous with delicious color. How 
it all rioted there with its inextinguishable 
beauty in the solitude and silence, from day to 
day, from year to year, while men died and 
systems passed, and nothing remained un- 
changed but the instincts of youth and love 
which inspired it. It was music and wine and 
wit ; it was so warm and glowing that it made 
the sunlight cold ; and it seemed ever after a 
secret of gladness and beauty that the sad old 
palace was keeping in its heart. ” 

It seemed to Tib and Winnie that they knew 
the fair dames who had revelled in this great 
ball-room, for they had copied many of the 
charming pastels of Rosalba Carriera,* who 
has left such an exquisite record of the noble 
ladies of Venice. 

It was the gayest, maddest period of Vene- 
tian society, while already premonitions of the 
downfall of Venetian supremacy were to be dis- 
cerned by the thoughtful, but were disregarded 
by those in power. Tib studied the period 
with great delight ; and the two figures which 

* For a sketch of the life and work of this artist, see “ Witch 
Winnie at Versailles.” 


216 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


interested her most were Titian and Sansovino. 
She found that the latter, with all his busy 
career as an architect, found time also for 
sculpture. There is a lovely Madonna of his 
over the door of San Marco ; and the bronze 
doors of its sacristy, which he designed, are 
works of great genius. Leader Scott sums up 
his career with this fitting tribute : 

“ So in a life of constant industry, Sansovino 
passed nearly a century of usefulness, loved by 
all who were near to him, and esteemed by the 
illustrious men of his age. At the time when 
he used to sit among the fiowers in Titian’s 
waterside garden, he was a venerable old man 
with a long white beard, which in his youth 
had been auburn. He was upright, handsome- 
ly dressed, and dependent neither upon specta- 
cles nor walking-staff. Upright in character as 
well as body, he never broke his word nor de- 
ceived a living soul ; quick to anger, he was 
also quick to make amends, and none ever suf- 
fered an injustice from him. After such a life, 
death touched him gently. Feeling weary one 
day, as at ninety-three a man might well do, he 
laid down to repose, and after a short time of 
calm rest, without pain, he passed away. ” 


A RAY OF LIGHT. 


217 


All that Tib learned of Sansovino and his work 
interested her so much that she determined to 
ask Yiolante to let her copy his letter, that she 
might ask the count to help her translate it ; 
but they were so busy with their studies that 
she never carried out this intention. 

The book was finished at last, written and 
illustrated and sent to the printer, and each 
realized that their pleasant days of companion- 
ship were ended. Tib accepted the situation 
very quietly. If she had learned to enjoy this 
co-operative study more than her solitary paint- 
ing, she did not confess it even to herself, but 
went back to her former work very cheerfully. 

Not so Angelo. His work was finished ; and, 
with nothing to occupy his thoughts, and this 
delightful comradeship at an end, he was 
doubly bereft. He thought of a dozen schemes 
for study which they might pursue together, 
but he was too honest to propose them. He 
knew that they were only subterfuges to enjoy 
her society, Avhich, according to the conditions 
which he had set himself, he could not honor- 
ably do. His lawyer had reported that he had 
made every research x^ossible, and that there 
was no possibility of proving that Giovanni 


218 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Zanelli liad been judicially murdered, unless 
the Greek Chrysolarus had left some written 
statement, or if it could be proved by the writ- 
ten statement of other witnesses that Chryso- 
larus was not sent by the Sultan, but was in 
reality a student of medicine, and that the prac- 
tices of Dr. Zanelli were all in the legitimate 
line of his profession. The lawyer had caused 
inquiries to be made in Constantinople and in 
Athens for any persons by the name of Chryso- 
larus, hoping to be able to learn something of 
this mysterious man through his descendants, 
but so far all of these researches had been 
utterly without success. For days Angelo 
brooded over the matter, reasoning in a circle 
and always coming back to the same walled 
door. 

The others noticed his depression, but no one 
but Winnie had any clew as to its cause. “ He 
is acting Hamlet all to himself,” she thought, 
“ and is so overwrought thinking of a past 
tragedy that he is creating one for himself in 
the present. I will have another talk with him 
and see if I can’t straighten him out.” 

Even as this benevolent resolve formed itself 
in Winnie’s mind, Angelo tapped at her door. 


A RAT OF LIGHT. 


219 


‘‘ Please step out on tlie balcony,” lie said. 
‘‘ I have something very important to tell 
yon.” 

Winnie obeyed the summons. The count 
held a newspaper crumpled in his hand and 
was strangely excited. ‘‘You told me,” he 
said, “ if I could not prove my ancestor inno- 
cent to disregard the possibility of any inherit- 
ed taint and go to the Signori ta Nellie as though 
I were affected in no way by the doings of my 
race.” 

“ I told you that I believed such taints could 
be overcome by one’s own effort, and that they 
faded away entirely in time. So that you 
would probably never feel any temptation 
whatever to crime, but only the more abhor- 
rence for it because it once existed in your 
family.” 

“You used a remarkable simile to enforce 
what you said,” the count continued. “ It was, 
you thought, as impossible that I should feel 
such an impulse as that in these latter days, 
when we understand the laws of life so well, 
the plague should revisit Venice.” 

“Yes,” replied Winnie ; “I think that the 
one is as little possible as the other. The con- 


220 WITCU WINNIE IN VENICE. 

ditions for moral and physical disease have 
alike changed. Think how different are our 
ideas on sanitation— the great preventive of 
disease— and you are morally different, finer 
and stronger, than a man even of your own 
race could have been three centuries ago.” 

Angelo laughed. Yes, the conditions have 
all changed,” he said. “ Nothing is the same 
except good and evil, life and death, love and 
despair. And in spite of all the improvement 
I am the descendant of a criminal. And— the 
plague is raging in India and is very likely to 
revisit Yenice.” 

He handed her the paper, and to her surprise 
she saw that his words were true. 

Oh, I am so sorry,” she exclaimed; ‘‘so 
sorry that I used so unfortunate an illustra- 
tion. But do not lay too much stress upon 
that. Tell Tib all about it. Let her decide. 
It is not fair to her not to do so. You are not 
the only one concerned. Her judgment may be 
better than yours. I do not know what the 
crime of your ancestor was, but surely it can 
have no connection with the plague, or the com- 
ing of that terrible scourge have anything to do 
with you.” 


A BAY OF LIGHT. 


221 


You do not know wliat yon are saying,” 
Angelo replied. My ancestor’s crime was 
that he let loose the plague ux^on Venice, and 
the only reason why it should come again 
would be to destroy the descendants of that 
guilty man.” 

“ Angelo Zanelli !” Winnie exclaimed, you 
have brooded over this matter until you are 
going insane. Do not think of it. Put it out 
of your mind. I do not believe that any one of 
your race could have committed such a crime. 
It is simply impossible, some wicked plot in- 
vented by his enemies.” 

I have thought it might be so,” Angelo re- 
plied somewhat more calmly ; but Giovanni 
Zanelli had no enemies.” 

Depend upon it you will find that he had,’ ’ 
Winnie insisted, her only thought to get him 
started upon another subject. Try to think 
up all the family traditions ; were there never 
any feuds or quarrels between your people and 
their neighbors ? Ask your mother.” 

Angelo frowned. ‘‘No, not her,” he said. 
“ She knows nothing of all this, and must be 
spared. She is not a Zanelli by blood as I am. 
And she would know nothing of our history. 


222 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


for my father never talked with her of his 
family.” 

‘‘ But you must have relations. There are 
always maiden aunts or old uncles who are per- 
fect cyclopsedias of genealogical information.” 

Yes, I have an aunt who married into the 
Cecini family. She was just what you de- 
scribe ; but I have not seen her for years, and 
she lives in Rome.” 

There !” said Winnie ; ‘‘I knew there must 
be an aunt. Write her immediately ; or, bet- 
ter, go and see her.” 

Thank you, but I don’t think — ” 

But Winnie darted away. She had caught a 
glimpse of Tib approaching the door, and she 
ran to meet her. ‘‘ Come straight up to the 
balcony,” she said, ‘‘and talk to Angelo Za- 
nelli ; he is nearly distracted.” 

“ What is the matter ?” Tib asked anxiously. 

“ Nothing is really the matter. He has sim- 
ply been studying that very hard question in 
the Catechism which I never could answer when 
I was a child. Let me see ; how did it go ? 
‘ Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgres- 
sion ? ’ That was the question, and the answer 
was : ‘ All mankind, descending from him in 


A RAT OF LIGHT. 


223 


ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell 
with him in the hrst transgression. ’ When my 
grandmother used to catechise me Sunday even- 
ings, I always went to pieces on that question.” 

I don’t wonder; but I can’t understand 
why Count Zanelli should bother his brains 
about a question in the Westminster Cate- 
chism, which no one puzzles over any longer.” 

“ Go and tell him so, and perhaps you can 
lift him out of his doleful dumps. I couldn’t.” 

“ Winnie, what joke is this of yours ?” 

‘‘No joke, I assure you. Go and ask the 
count what is troubling him and see what he 
will say. ” 

But Tib found Angelo in a very different 
mood from that in which Winnie had left him. 
As soon as she had disappeared he had turned 
again to his newspaper, and continued to read 
the article descriptive of the plague. 

“ The native physicians are very ignorant, 
and are worse than helpless in this emergency. 
The victims are daily exposed to die on the 
banks of the Ganges. Only one doctor in the 
province apj^ears to have any success in treating 
the malady, and this is a man of Greek descent, 
named Chrysolarus, who comes from a long line 


224 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


of physicians, and is said to be in possession of 
a family secret by which his ancestors have 
from time to time successfully treated this dis- 
ease at different periods of its \isitation.” 

A wild hope sprang up in Angelo Zanelli’s 
heart. What if this Dr. Chrysolarus were a 
descendant of the Greek who had fled at the 
time of Giovanni Zanelli’s trial ? What if he 
were no bearer of bribes, but an earnest seeker 
after knowledge, and if the practices which had 
been regarded as nefarious were gropings after 
some new remedies and preventions for this 
dread disease ? The possibility made his brain 
reel ; and Tib, who came to him expecting to 
And him in one of his dark moods, was surprised 
at the look of exultant joy with which he greet- 
ed her. 

You have come from the Signorita Win- 
nie he asked. She has told you 

‘‘Not a great deal ; only that you were 
troubled about some problem.” 

“ A problem 1 Ah ! that is it ; but the solu- 
tion is perhaps near. Only I must go to India 
to And it.” 

“ To India ! What is the problem ? Must 
you stay long 


A RAY OF LIGHT. 


225 


Her voice trembled. If Angelo was to be 
detained long in India they might return to 
America before he came back, and this be the 
end of everything. 

He saw the look of dismay in her face, bnt 
dared not comfort his heart with what it might 
mean. 

Sit down, Signorita Nellie, and I will tell 
you the problem.” And he told her the story 
of the old alchemist, and his great desire to 
prove him an honorable man, but not of the 
issues which hung on that proof. 

And you must go ? Why do you not write 
first V ’ 

‘^Yes, I shall write, but I feel that I shall 
go ; but first I must tell my mother everything, 
otherwise she could not understand the neces- 
sity of this journey.” 

‘‘You should have told her before. A trou- 
ble shared with one who loves us is a trouble 
halved.” 

“But I would not have her bear even half 
the trouble.” 

“ Ho you suppose that one can hide trouble 
from one’s mother ? She has known all along 
that something distressed you, and it has wor- 


226 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


lied her infinitely more because you have not 
given her your confidence, because she did not 
know what this trouble was, than if she had 
been told the truth. I have seen her watch 
you with such a hungry, devouring gaze, as 
though she would read your very soul, and 
then jest bravely, as though her heart were as 
light as a young girl’ s, when you gave her one 
of your dark, suspicious looks, as though you 
felt and resented her watchfulness.” 

And you have seen all that ! And I have 
been so blind !” 

It takes a woman, I think, to perfectly 
read another woman’ s heart. Tell your moth- 
er, Angelo, and always tell her everything.” 

And when Angelo told her he was surprised 
to see how little of a shock it was. “ I wish 
your father had told me this long ago,” she 
said. “ It would have made many mysteries 
clear.” 

“ Would you have married him, mother, if 
you had known this family secret ?” 

‘‘Certainly, my dear. I would have given 
him the consolation of my devotion all the 
more readily if I had known how sorely he 
needed it.” 


A RAY OF LIGHT. 


227 


Angelo’s heart leaped ; but he added, after a 
moment’s thought : ‘‘ But was it right for father, 
knowing what he did, to hand down this curse 
of inherited criminal instincts V ’ 

‘‘ My son, you are not your father’s judge,” 
the contessa replied. ‘‘ Moreover, I am certain 
that he did not believe— nor do I believe— that 
your ancestor was a criminal.” 

‘‘If he could only have proved that, how 
happy we would all have been !” 

A look of infinite pity came into his mother’s 
face. “ Even that knowledge might not have 
removed all obstacles to our marriage. Still it 
is best to know the whole truth, and the only 
grief that is insupportable is the wickedness of 
those near and dear to us.” 

After this the days sped by rapidly until a 
letter was received from the Dr. Chrysolarus in 
India, saying that an ancestor of his had had an 
intimate friend named Zanelli, and that he was 
in the possession of a chest of papers, medical 
disquisitions and records of observations writ- 
ten by this Dr. Zanelli, which he would show 
to Angelo with pleasure if he would come to 
India, though he was unwilling to send them to 
Venice. 


228 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


This at once decided Angelo to take the 
journey. His mother, after studying the docu 
ments in the alchemist’s cabinet, made no ob- 
jection, but, on the contrary, encouraged it, 
though she expressed no great hope of his 
finding the data he sought. 

‘‘It is always best to do all one can,” she 
said. “ Action, the change of scene, will do you 
good ; and in the mean time I will renew com- 
munication with your relatives in Home.” 

The contessa had at first desired to go with 
her son ; but to this, on account of the pres- 
ence of the plague in the country, he would not 
listen ; and John accepted an invitation to 
make the trip with him as his companion. 

Angelo kept his determination to make no 
revelation to the last ; only when parting from 
Tib he said, “ I depend upon you to cheer my 
mother until I return.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 





HORTLY after Count Zanelli’s de- 
parture an event occurred which 
was of interest to all the Amer- 
icans at the Palaz- 
zo Zanelli, though 
more particularly 
so to Winnie. This 
was the unexx)ected 
arrival of Dr. Van 
Silva, familiarly 
known as Van to 
readers of former 


volumes of this series. 

When Winnie left Holland it was Van’s in- 
tention to sail shortly for America ; but about 
this time the plague appeared in China, and at- 
tracted the attention of investigators in pathol- 
ogy. One of Van’s old classmates at the Pas- 
teur Laboratory in Paris, Di\ Yersin, discovered 


230 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


the plague germ and labored to cultivate an 
anti-plague serum which would prove the same 
antidote for this disease as antitoxin for diph- 
theria. By inoculating goats and donkeys 
with the plague bacillus, at first in minute 
quantities, and repeating the inoculation from 
time to time, he succeeded in developing a germ 
which, introduced into the blood of a plague- 
stricken patient, destroyed the deadly bacillus. 
Dr. Yersin proved the efficacy of his great 
discovery by nursing twenty-three victims of 
the plague in Amoy, of whom he cured twenty- 
one, when in the ordinary course of the disease 
twenty-one at least would have died. 

Yan was full of admiration for this great 
pioneer in medical science, and of enthusiasm 
for the study of bacteriology itself, and instead 
of returning to America, he lingered in Paris, 
studying its latest developments. Just at this 
time a convention of scientists was held at Ven- 
ice to discuss the disease, and Yan determined 
at once to attend it. He had a vague hope that 
a way might open to his going out to the 
Orient either to join Dr. Yersin or as a medical 
missionary to some other plague-stricken dis- 
trict ; and even if this project should fail, Yan 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 


231 


felt that the trip to Venice would be fully re- 
warded by the pleasure of again meeting Win- 
nie. He was glad that the convention would 
detain him for some time in the beautiful city ; 
and though under ordinary circumstances he 
would have fumed with impatience at the slow- 
ness of its proceedings, and that there seemed 
to be no likelihood of the organization of any 
expedition of scientists for experimental study 
or of a relief corps of nurses and physicians 
under the auspices of the Red Cross, he quieted 
his conscience with the plea that the delay was 
enforced, and gave himself up to the delight 
which he always experienced in Winnie’s so- 
ciety. 

At first he had taken a room at a neighbor- 
ing hotel, but he happened to mention to Win- 
nie that he desired an apartment where he 
could carry on his studies and experiments, 
and as the contessa had shown the old alche- 
mist’s little suite quite unreservedly to them all, 
explaining the spring which opened the secret 
door in the studio, it immediately occurred to 
Winnie that this v^^as the very place for Van. 
He agreed with her emphatically, and Adelaide 
was empowered to negotiate with the contessa 


232 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


for the rental of the rooms. The coiitessa kind- 
ly responded by insisting that Van should oc- 
cupy them as her guest, and Van was imme- 
diately installed. The place was marvellously 
fitted for all his needs, for in the walled gar- 
den, with which the suite alone communicated, 
there were old rabbit hutches and sheds for ani- 
mals. As Van laughingly remarked, if the old 
alchemist had himself been a bacteriologist, he 
could not have provided him more perfectly 
with conveniences where experiments could be 
carried on apart from the espionage of prying 
curiosity. 

Van was greatly interested in the history of 
this Dr. Zanelli as Winnie and Tib recounted 
it. He deeply regretted that his library had 
been burned, as he would have enjoyed brows- 
ing in the old books and ascertaining just the 
status of the science of medicine in the six- 
teenth century. The alchemist’s cabinet was 
put at his disposal, and Tib showed him the 
record of Dr. Zanelli’s trials and the diary, 
written in a hand as perfect as print and with 
perfectly black ink on yellowed parchment in 
scholarly Latin. 

Van translated the record of the trials first, 


A ALCHEMIST. 


233 


and then took np the diary, reading scraps of 
it each morning to the girls as they took their 
coffee together on the balcony before they sepa- 
rated for the work of the day. 

The girls had taken np a new occupation, 
which for several days in the week interrupted 
their artistic study. 

The contessa had said to Tib : ‘‘In the old 
days, when the Crusaders sailed away to the 
Orient, their wives and sweethearts, mothers 
and sisters, filled the dreary days of absence 
with works of charity and religion. As Angelo 
fears that his ancestor may have been responsi- 
ble for bringing the plague to Venice, or at 
least for its spread by his foolhardy experi- 
ments, I intend to do what I can to combat its 
coming at this time. If your friend Dr. Van 
Silva will write a lecture, giving the best means 
for its prevention by simple sanitary rales, that 
should be known and can be obeyed by every 
one, I will translate the lecture into Italian and 
invite my friends to hear it. ” 

Van was very happy to do this ; and by the 
contessa’ s efforts a club was founded among in- 
fluential people, having for its object the im- 
provement of the sanitation of Venice. The 


234 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


contessa did more than this ; she invited the 
school-teachers to her house, and explained to 
them how they could instruct their pupils in 
some of the first principles of healthful living, 
and especially in the importance of personal 
cleanliness. With the fresh salt water constant- 
ly lai)ping their doorsteps, there was no excuse 
for the poorest for dirty linen or filthy persons. 
It was just here that Winnie and Tib organized 
a scheme which put into practice the theories 
taught by the school-teachers. Yiolante’s sis- 
ter was an expert laundress. The picturesque 
court with the carved well-curb, where the girls 
painted, was frequently sloppy with little run- 
nels of water, whose cerulean hue came from 
the indigo on her bench, and on other days the 
sunny side of the wooden balcony was white 
with linen drying, and the two scaldinos that 
heated her irons were each red hot. But Pla- 
cida could not get sufficient custom to keep her 
busy, and Winnie and Tib subsidized her for 
two days in each week to open a free school in 
fine laundry work for girls. Not only were the 
girls taught free of charge, but they were en- 
couraged to bring the family washing to prac- 
tise upon. Placida soon had so many pupils 


A 3101) EEIi ALCHEMIST. 


235 


that she could not attend to them, so Tib and 
Winnie, who could not afford to increase their 
money contribution, assisted in teaching the 
children on ironing day. The contessa was 
delighted, and offered prizes for the most ex- 
pert — cakes of scented soap, combs, and tooth- 
brushes — while excursions to the Lido, with 
surf bathing, were provided once a week for 
the entire class ; this as a matter of pure enjoy- 
ment, with no hint to the children that it, too, 
was a sanitary measure and a part of the cru- 
sade against filth and disease. They soon 
begged to take their brothers and sisters with 
them to share in this pleasure, and many of 
them became fine swimmers and divers. Teach- 
ing the little laundresses was work to which 
neither of the girls had been accustomed, 
and on certain days, when the heat was more 
than usually sultry, it was very trying ; but the 
excursions to the Lido were always delightful. 
Van went with them, and was a great help as 
marshal. Winnie was a prize swimmer, and more 
than once her quick perception and prompt, 
cool action saved the life of one of her charges. 
It was owing to her that the season ended with- 
out an accident, for Tib’s heroism was of an- 


236 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


other sort, and she admired Winnie’s dash with- 
out being able to emulate it, never realizing 
that the self-abnegation which enabled her to 
care for the children on their way to the Lido 
was as truly heroism as Winnie’s more brilliant 
exploits. Though always gentle and kind, she 
was firm upon one point. She would never 
allow a dirty child to caress her. After you 
have had your bath and are sweet and clean,” 
she would promise, ‘‘I will kiss you with 
pleasure.” And many a child, in order to win 
this sweet guerdon, the sooner scrubbed her 
face energetically before going to the Lido. 
The results of that summer’s instruction in 
cleanliness were incalculable. Each child car- 
ried to its home new ideals of purity, and 
became herself a missionary of that virtue 
which is not only ‘^next to,” but an essen- 
tial part of godliness. She had a way, too, 
of impressing them with moral lessons by con- 
demning a boy who had used foul language 
to have his mouth washed with strong black 
soap by' two of the older girls, and she taught 
them such texts as Blessed are the pure in 
heart.” 

It was Placida, however, who taught them to 


A MODBBJf ALCHEMIST. 


^37 


sing the laundress’s song, which has been trans- 
lated by George Borrow : 

“ I’ll Wftary myself each night and each day 
To aid my unfortunate brothers, 

As the laundress tans her own face in the ray 
To cleanse the garments of others.” 

“You must find this a great interruption to 
your regular work,” the contessa said one day. 

“ On the contrary,” Winnie replied, point- 
ing to the little silver cross which she always 
wore, “it is a part of the work which we are 
pledged to do. Tib and I have felt so selfish 
all winter that we could not thoroughly enjoy 
our art work. We have been homesick, too, 
for the Messiah Home, but now we feel that we 
have found some work that we can do for our 
Elder Brother even here, and so we can really 
enjoy the other privileges that come to us.” 

“ What do you mean by the Messiah Home ?” 
the contessa asked, and Winnie told her of the 
“ children’s charity for children.” The home, 
which is such more than in name, where home- 
less children are cared for, * in great part 

* The Messiah Home, 145 East Fifteenth Street, New York, 
has been described in previous volumes of this series. Its 
beautiful work still goes on, aided largely by children. 


238 


WITGH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


through the efforts of the King’s Daughters, 
the Junior League, and other bands of children. 

Are there any Italian children there V the 
contessa asked. 

The home has cared for a great many Ital- 
ians first and last,” Winnie replied. “I re- 
member the three Amati girls and the Stavini 
boy at its very first founding. And is it not 
odd, dear contessa, our first fair was in imita- 
tion of a Venetian fete. That was because Tib 
was always fond of anything that had anything 
to do with Venice.” 

The contessa looked lovingly at Tib. And 
why was that, my dear, since at that time you 
had not seen Venice 

Tib was too honest not to answer truly. 

My love for Venice dates from my childhood. 
It was Count Angelo who told me about the 
city first.” 

‘‘ Then my son must help yon with that 
Home of the Elder Brother of which you speak. 
That idea of endowing a ‘ guest bed ’ is a 
charming one, and Lolo shall own one there, 
where Italian children far from home shall be 
entertained. Tell me how to make out the 
check, and paint for me, to hang over the cot. 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 


239 


some scene in Venice. I would not have Ital- 
ian children forget their native land even in my 
own hospitable country.” 

So the summer passed. It seemed a long 
time to Tib before the contessa received the 
first letter announcing her son’s arrival in Bom- 
bay. His description of the plague and of the 
famine was heartrending. John Nash, too, 
who at another time would have had eyes only 
for the wonderful Indian architecture, and the 
picturesque aspects of Oriental life, wrote only 
now of the horror of the Black Death. 

They had to journey some distance into the 
interior to reach the town where Dr. Chryso- 
larus lived. The count wrote that his quest in 
the presence of so much misery seemed a very 
selfish one ; but that he should endeavor to re- 
lieve as much suffering as possible on his way. 
He regretted that he had not studied medi- 
cine ; money could do so little without knowl- 
edge. 

When Winnie heard, this she could hardly 
contain herself. “ Here is Van,” she thought, 

who has the knowledge. If the count only 
knew, perhaps he would furnish the means for 
Van to join him. What a xhty that he did not 


240 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


reach Venice before the count started, and go 
with him instead of John Nash.” 

But delicacy prevented both Tib and Winnie 
from suggesting this to the contessa or from 
writing to the count, and Van waited in vain 
for any action on the part of the convention. 
But his stay was not a futile one. Besides aid- 
ing the contessa in her plan for the good of 
Venice, he was learning much, and more by his 
individual studies and experiments than from 
the discussions at the convention. He was 
greatly interested, as we have said, in the diary 
of the old alchemist. He seems to have been 
a very worthy man,” he said to the contessa, 
who had requested him to read the diary and 
give her his opinion of its author. He was 
evidently an enthusiast in his profession, and 
particularly interested in studying the plague. 
I find here a note in which he copies the diag- 
nosis given by Greek physicians in the time of 
Dionysius, 300 b.c., and he draws the conclu- 
sion that it was the same disease which Boccac- 
cio describes as ravaging Florence in 1348, when 
one hundred thousand souls perished. He 
makes the remark that Venice founded the first 
quarantine in 1403, and hopes that these meas- 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 


241 


iires will be perfected. It is strange that he 
was considered a magician, for he does not take 
any stock in sorcery or astrology, which he 
calls ‘ old wives’ fables.’ He writes here of 
Pietro of Albano, a doctor and professor at the 
University of Padua, and quotes his own state- 
ment that philosophy made him subtle, medi- 
cine rich, and astrology a liar. He praises the 
Doge Olio Maliperi, who in 1181 punished poi- 
soning and sorcery with death. He appears to 
me to have been an earnest seeker after truth 
and an experimentalist with new methods rather 
than a follower of old ones, though he asserts 
that the Arabian physicians of Cordova and 
Toledo were in possession of many secrets un- 
known to the Italian men of science. He was 
a close observer and very humane. He writes 
frequently of the diseases of animals, and had 
made original study in veterinary science. I do 
not believe that such a man could have had any 
malign motives.” 

‘‘Nor do I,” the contessa replied quickly. 
“ The Zanellis were all peculiarly sensitive and 
tender-hearted. My husband could never bear 
to see any creature suffer. He told me that his 
father would never hunt, or fish, or eat flesh of 


242 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


any kind, maintaining that as it was not in onr 
power to bestow life, we had no right to take it 
away. I have never for a moment thought that 
this ancestor was a wholesale murderer through 
malice prepense. If he really committed the 
crime with which he was charged, he was not an 
intentional criminal. What I fear is that, in 
his wild experiments, he may have been in 
some sort answerable to the charge. My son’s 
lawyer, who has been looking this matter up 
very carefully, says that the Inquisition never 
had full power in Venice to commit the atro- 
cious murders which signalized it in other parts 
of Italy and in Spain, and though at the time 
our ancestor was executed Leo X. was using 
his utmost power to push on its work, and had 
published his bull ^Honestis,’ upbraiding the 
laxity and leniency which had been displayed 
during previous pontificates, his most energetic 
expressions could not induce the Signoria to 
give up its right of final decision in all matters 
of life and death. The Inquisition might ferret 
out heresy, sorcery, or other crimes ; might 
prosecute and even condemn, but sentence 
could only be pronounced and executed by the 
Council of Ten. So, while the persecution of 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 


243 


tile Waldenses raged around us in other parts 
of Yenetia, and seventy witches were burned in 
one year in Brescia, the Inquisitor Fra Antonio 
called in vain upon our Senate for aid in sup- 
porting his measures, and Venice remained a 
haven of refuge for the persecuted. Conse- 
quently, though the crime for which our ances- 
tor finally suffered was said to have been com- 
mitted during the plague of 1511, he was twice 
brought to trial, and was not finally executed 
until fully ten years later. It would seem that 
he had every chance for justice, for at his first 
trial he was acquitted by the Holy Office itself, 
through the influence of Cardinal Bembo, and 
the matter was never carried to the Signoria. 
But when the charges were renewed and ap- 
proved to the satisfaction of the Inquisition, 
the proceedings were carefully revised and rati- 
fied by the Council of Ten, so that he perished 
not alone as a victim of the Inquisition, but as 
an ordinary criminal condemned by the State 
for a secular offence.” 

‘‘ And yet you say, contessa, that you agree 
with me in believing him innocent.” 

“ Innocent, but none the less the cause of 
great calamity to his native city, and tlie trans- 


244 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


mifcter to liis descendants of an ineradicable 
curse. I have sent my son on this quest with 
no hope of any success, but to distract his mind 
and for another reason. I fear that he is quite 
right in his conclusion that no Zanelli since the 
alchemist had or has any right to marry. ” 

‘‘I understand you,” said Yan with profound 
respect and pity. ‘‘ You believe that Giovanni 
Zanelli was insane, and that this insanity was 
hereditary V ’ 

The contessa bowed silently. 

‘‘ Why do you think so ? Were there any 
other members of the family who were indis- 
putably deranged 

‘‘ I am not so conversant with the family his- 
tory as I could wish. My husband was pecu- 
liarly reticent on this point ; but from what I 
have gathered, the Zanellis were all more or 
less peculiar. My husband’s father, as I have 
said, was what we would call to-day a crank in 
his vegetarian and other humanitarian theories. 
In my husband’s own case the tendency showed 
itself only mildly in a melancholy and secre- 
tive disposition, a characteristic which I have 
noticed with grave solicitude developing in my 
son.” 


A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 


245 


Van looked very grave. The case was tak- 
ing on new bearings. I cannot help thinking 
you are wrong,” he said. ‘^This diary, as I 
have studied it so far, is not the record of the 
workings of a diseased mind. From this point 
on it contains the careful noting of his experi- 
ments. These 1 will follow, and I hope soon 
to be able to prove to yon that Dr. Zanelli was 
neither a criminal nor a maniac, but a man who 
lived three centuries too soon and a martyr to 
science.” 

‘‘ In the mean time I hope to hear from my 
husband’s aunt, to whom I have written for en- 
lightenment, and I beg you, Dr. Van Silva, 
to conduct your researches as impartially as 
though your friendship for us did not bias your 
wishes. Remember that a physician must often 
be cruel to be kind ; and should you find rea- 
son to believe that my apprehensions are well 
founded, I beg you to induce these young Amer- 
ican girls to leave for America before my son’s 
return. I am sure you will understand me 
when I say that it is because I sincerely love the 
Signori ta Nellie that I make this request.” 


CHAPTER XIY. 

CiESAE Borgia’s revenge. 


“ There be quick poisons and slow poisons — poisons that 
strike with instant death so soon as they be swallowed ; and 
poisons whereby the victims endure a thousand deaths, 
dying by inches, as by some mysterious disease. And these 
poisons be the most malignant, not only because they who 
have taken them suffer longer, but because in their lingering 
they transmit the evil of their effects in diseased constitutions 
to their posterity, so that one may strike not one’s enemy 
alone but his remotest descendant, and that with a refinement 
of cruelty as exquisite as its workings are sure and subtle.” — 
Old Book on Toxicology. 


OUNT ANGELO had been 
gone some weeks before 
Tib happened to think of 
the letters in Yiolante’s 
possession and the pos- 
sibility that they might throw 
some light on the story of the 
old alchemist. This possibility 
hashed across her mind one day 
when reading a history of the 
Italian Renaissance by Symonds. 
He gives better than any other 
author the historical back- 
ground of the time in which Dr. Zanelli 
lived ; and as Tib read of Titian, of Leo X., 



CJESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


247 


and the Borgias, it struck her that Caesar 
Borgia’s name had been mentioned in one of 
the letters, and she determined to see Violante 
at once and ask her permission to translate 
them. That we may understand these letters 
as Tib did, it will be well to give here a brief 
resume of the lives of some of the personages 
of whom she had been reading, referring the 
reader also to the dates given in the preface for 
a complete comprehension of the succession of 
events. 

It was the time of the B^naissance, that won- 
derful period when all over Italy learning, lit- 
erature, the arts, inventions, discoveries, new 
schemes of government had their new birth * 
and it was an era of great wealth and luxury, 
when nothing seemed impossible to accomplish 
to men of genius and of daring, and these were 
everywhere in every rank and profession. 

The time makes the man. This is nowhere 
more evident than in a consideration of the 
Popes. Those from 1447 to 1 527, under the inf] u- 
ence of the Renaissance, were luxurious, selfish, 
unscrupulous ; the Popes and iwominent church- 
men who followed them in the remainder of 
the sixteenth century, stimulated by the great 


248 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


reform outside the Church, while uncom- 
promising opponents of Protestantism, were 
themselves active reformers, often men of 
saintly lives, self-denying and stern. This re- 
form within the Church is a fact of which Prot- 
estants are apt to lose sight. Savonarola was a 
product of this period, a protest of all that was 
sincere in the Church against its corruptions, and 
no saintlier soul ever lived than Carlo Borromeo. 

Do you remember his story ? Brought up in 
that princely ancestral home on Isola Bella, in 
Lago Maggiore, his soul filled full with the 
beautiful, he devoted all his wealth, his superb 
scholarship, his life to God. At first he felt 
that the mission of his life was to build the 
most beautiful cathedral in Italy, and as Arch- 
bishop of Milan his fortune, his influence, and 
his critical taste were devoted to this ambition. 
Urged by his passion, the cathedral shot up like 
a lily— not built piecemeal through different 
ages, but with all the coherence of one guiding 
mind. It was the dream of his life to chant the 
‘‘Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
peace” at its dedication. Then the black 
plague swept down upon Italy, and the dead 
and dying lay in the streets of Milan. Carlo 


Cu^SAB BORGIA^S REVENGE. 249 

Borromeo took the funds which he had set aside 
for the building of his beloved cathedral and 
opened hospitals, organized the monks into a 
sanitary commission and into bands of nurses, 
and himself drove about the fever-stricken 
streets collecting the sick. Under his energetic 
measures the plague was stayed, but as its last 
victim. Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, 
lay dead. In a jewelled casket in the crypt of 
the finished cathedral, whose many-statued pin- 
nacles his longing eyes never saw, they buried 
the man who loved his fellow-men more than 
the dear ambition of his life, or than life itself, 
and who shall deny his right to canonization ? 

Even the men whom we brand as supporters 
of the Inquisition were many of them sincere in 
their rigor, seeking to cleanse the Church of its 
sins. But this period of reform was the swing 
of the pendulum from one of license. Rodrigo 
Borgia, who in 1492 became Pope as Alexander 
VI., is a type of the worst of the Popes of the 
Renaissance. The Borgias, father and son, are 
an interesting study. So expert were they in 
poisoning that they could 


“ Carry pure death in an earring, a casket, 
A signet, a fan mount, a filigree basket,” 


250 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


At Alexander’ s election, we are told by Sym- 
onds how shamelessly the cardinals’ votes were 
bought. The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza sold his 
vote for the lucrative post of vice-chancellor ; 
the Orsini for the Borgia palaces at Rome, to- 
gether with tAvo castles ; Cardinal Colonna for 
the abbey of Subiaco ; others were bought Avith 
churches and bishojDrics. Less influential mem - 
bers sold themselves for gold, and to meet their 
demands the Borgias sent Cardinal Sforza four 
mules laden with coin in open day. The flery 
Cardinal Giuliano de Rovere (who later in 
life himself became Pope under the title of 
Julius II.) remained implacable and obdurate. 
He defled the whole brood of Borgias, and from 
this time ahvays Avore secret armor. He and 
flve other cardinals alone refused to sell their 
votes, but the majority of the electoral college 
were corrupted, and Alexander Borgia was 
elected, the young Cardinal Giovanni de Medici 
(afterward Leo X.) whispering, on the an- 
nouncement, “ We are in the wolf’s jaws ; 
he will gulp us doAvn unless Ave make our 
flight good.” A Avriter of the day says he 
combined craft Avith singular sagacity, a 
sound judgment Avith extraordinary poAvers 


CJSSAll BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


251 


of persuasion. Symonds asserts, “ All con- 
siderations of religion and morality were sub- 
ordinated by him to policy.” He not only 
sold benefices, but murdered the holders and 
sold them over and over again. 

The Venetian ambassador wrote in 1500 : 

Every night they find in Rome four or five 
murdered men, bishops and prelates and so 
forth.” Three cardinals were known to have 
been poisoned by the Pope. Csesar Borgia, his 
son, was still more reckless, and caused all who 
opposed him to be assassinated either by the 
stiletto or by poison. 

To show the general spread of wickedness 
which followed those illustrious examples, I 
quote from another authority : 

Italian history teems with instances which 
sufficiently show that poison was both the 
favorite weapon of the oppressor and the re- 
venge of the oppressed. The Borgias are gen- 
erally singled out and held up to the horror 
and detestation of mankind ; but they merely 
employed this method of destroying their ad- 
versaries a little more frequently than their 
neighbors. In 1648 it was found that young 
widows were extraordinarily abundant in 


252 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Rome, and that most of the uiihapiiy mar- 
riages were speedily dissolved by the sickness 
and death of the husband ; and further in- 
quiries resulted in the discovery of a secret so- 
ciety of young matrons which met at the house 
of an old hag, by name Hieronyma Spara, a re- 
puted witch, who supplied those of them who 
wished with a slow poison, clear, tasteless, and 
limpid, and of strength sufficient to destroy life 
in the course of a day, week, month, or tiumber 
of months, as the purchaser preferred. Half a 
century later the discovery was made of a sim- 
ilar organization at Naples, headed by an old 
woman of threescore and ten, named Toffania, 
who manufactured a poison similar to that of 
La Spara, but known as Aqua Tofana. After 
having caused the death of more than six hun- 
dred persons, Toffania was seized, tried, and 
strangled.” 

Lucrezia Borgia was for a long time consid- 
ered equally criminal, but is now believed to 
have been innocent of the crimes imputed to 
her. For eleven years the Pope Alexander and 
his son rioted in wickedness, and then both ac- 
cidentally drank poisoned wine prepared for 
the Cardinal of Come to. The Pope died, and 


G^^SAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


253 


though CcGsar Borgia recovered, his enemies 
concerted means for his downfall. 

Pope Julius II., though utterly worldly, was 
a stronger temporal i^rince than any of his pred- 
ecessors, and he left the papacy enriched and 
strengthened. Leo X., who succeeded Julius 
in 1513, was the second son of Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent. He was thoroughly a Medici and a 
product of the Renaissance. When he was 
made Pope he said to the Duke of Nemours, 
“ Let us enjoy the papacy, since God has given 
it to us.” This was the keynote of his pontifi- 
cate ; masks and balls, comedies and carnival 
processions filled the streets of Rome. He is 
praised as a princely patron of art, but he was 
ruinously extravagant. Julius had left seven 
hundred thousand ducats in the coffers of St. 
Angelo, and the creation of thirty-nine cardi- 
nals in 1517 brought it above five hundred thou- 
sand more, yet the bankers and cardinals of 
Rome were half ruined by loans which Leo X. 
extorted from them ; and when he died the very 
jewels of his tiara were pledged to pay his 
debts. He lived joyously, but he was a scholar 
and the friend of scholars. A wily statesman, 
he was able to make both Francis I. and 


254 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Charles V. his tools, and to work the ruin 
both of the dauntless Savonarola and of the 
republic which the reforming monk had estab- 
lished in Florence, and to re-establish his exiled 
family in their power. A time-server, he saw 
that the feeling of the people was setting to- 
ward a sterner doctrine, and so, while utterly 
irreligious himself, he gave his sanction to the 
Inquisition. 

Bearing in mind that the old alchemist is sup- 
posed to have lived through the pontificates of 
Alexander Borgia and Julius II., and to have 
been executed in that of Leo X., and that the 
visitation of the plague during which he made 
his experiments was that of 1511, when Gior- 
gione died, we will take up the letters which 
Tib found waiting for her translation. 

Orazio’s First Letter. 

To the Illustrious Signorita Yiolhnte Palma. 

Honored Lady : I write touching a matter 
concerning which you asked me, when you 
were doing my father the honor to pose for him 
in his studio (but which I could not expound 
in detail at that time, owing to the presence of 
persons upon whose discretion I could not 


CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


255 


count)— namely, the unjust trials and murder- 
ous death (albeit the former were carried on by 
the Holy Office and the latter executed by our 
State of Yenice) of our mutual friend and my 
revered instructor, Dr. Zanelli. 

You will remember that at the peril of my 
life I testified in his favor, clearing him, at his 
first trial, of one of the charges preferred 
against him — namely, that of concocting the in- 
famous Borgia poison. For at the time of the 
visit of that wicked prince Crnsar Borgia to 
Yenice, when he sat to my father for his por- 
trait, though I was then but a stripling, I had 
already begun my novitiate as a student of 
alchemy with Dr. Zanelli, and we were then 
studying the nature of poisons and their anti- 
dotes. It was open scandal that the Borgias 
were expert poisoners, having in their posses- 
sion a most deadly drug, of whose nature 
nothing was clearly known except that no 
chemist had been able to invent a test for its 
presence or an antidote which could counter- 
act its effects. My good and wise master was 
much interested in this matter, and I have 
heard him declare that if he could submit 
this subtle poison to certain tests in his lab- 


256 


WITGII WINNIE IN VENICE. 


oratory he could accomidisli both of these 
much-to-be-desired objects. 

Therefore, when Caesar Borgia visited Venice, 
and came each day to my father’s studio, I was 
possessed with a fascination which kept me in 
his presence. This fascination had nothing of 
love in it, for I felt from the first time I beheld 
him that here was an evil and a dangerous 
man ; but I brooded over my master’s desire to 
possess himself of the Borgia poison, and I 
longed for some opportunity to rifle his pockets, 
when perchance he should be bathing at the 
Lido or overcome with wine after a banquet, 
for I doubted not that, serpent as he was, he 
carried his venom always with him, and that if 
I watched I should espy it. And this, indeed, 
happened, but not in such guise as I had fig- 
ured to myself. 

My father had one of the marvellous talking 
birds, a descendant of those which Marco Polo 
brought from the Indies. He kept it in his 
studio, not because he delighted in its song or 
speech, for in the former accomplishment it 
possessed no skill whatever, and in the latter it 
had been bred up by malicious people who had 
taught it to blaspheme and to call evil names ; 


CuESAR BOROIA'S REVENGE. 


257 


but it was a bird of such gorgeous and wonder- 
ful i)lumage— red, yellow, blue, and green— that 
my father took pleasure in its color, and had 
chained it to a perch, from whence it would 
swear and vituperate to its heart’s content. 
This scandal-causing fowl had no respect for 
dignitaries, for I have heard it blaspheme in 
the presence of Cardinal Bembo, and call the 
doge a prating fool. When Caesar Borgia first 
entered the studio it flew into a fury, ruffling 
its feathers and shrieking out its entire vocabu- 
lary of objurgation, in which were the words 
murderer, assassin, and ]3arricide. The prince 
turned white at that last word (though his fa- 
ther was then living) and drew his sword ; but 
my father restrained him, explaining that the 
witless creature had no knowledge of the sense 
of the words it uttered. But though the prince 
laughed, I could see that he thought the jest a 
sorry one, and that he hated the parrot and 
would willingly have done it a mischief. There- 
fore, I could scarce believe my eyes the next 
morning when, entering the studio before my 
father, I saw the prince feeding the bird with 
comfits. But I understood better the meaning 
of this largess when, an hour later, the unhappy 


258 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


parrot drox)ped dead from its perch. My fa- 
ther was distressed, but the xuince smiled sar- 
donically and said that doubtless the creature 
had died of too much talking, and that he had 
known many men to die from the same cause. 

After Caesar Borgia had left the studio I care- 
fully examined the parrot’ s feeding-trough, and 
found therein several small round comfits, like 
beads, which the x)rince had doubtless placed 
there. These I gathered up with care and took 
to Dr. Zanelli, telling him the entire story. I 
have never seen my master so happy or so ex- 
cited ; he embraced me, bade me keep the secret 
well, and told me that I had furnished him 
with the means , of baffling many evil designs, 
which baffling he indeed accomplished, and in 
this way : 

Dr. Zanelli had a friend in the director of the 
glass-works at Murano, and for him shortly 
after this he invented a species of glass contain- 
ing a chemical so sensitive that the acrid poison 
would disintegrate it, and the glass so wrought 
upon would fly into fragments ; and the doctor 
went often to Murano to drop into the molten 
glass the chemicals which should give it this 
wonderful quality. About the same time he 


CMS An BonoiA's revenge. 


259 


perfected the invention of an antidote, and this 
and the glasses were sold in Rome, but were not 
publicly offered for sale in Venice, as there was 
no market for them, there being no one here 
who had cause to fear the malice of the Bor- 
gias— no one but my dear master himself ; for 
it soon happened that Caesar Borgia, having 
prepared a posset for Giuliano de Rovere, whom 
he knew to be his father’s enemy and the can- 
didate for the papacy of the party which op- 
posed the Borgias, had the mortification to see 
De Rovere drop into the posset a small glass 
bead, and when it presently melted, as though 
it had been sugar, he spilled the wine upon the 
floor, declaring that it was poisoned, and he 
would have none of it. Whereupon the prince 
knew that he was foiled ; and causing his spies 
to search, he speedily ascertained that Dr. Za- 
nelli of Venice was possessed of the secret of 
thwarting their malice ; whereupon they vented 
it upon his head, but not by the means of 
poison, knowing that he possessed both test 
and antidote. But the prince’s father, Pope 
Alexander Borgia, himself wrote to the In- 
quisitor at Venice, telling him to look to Dr. 
Zanelli as one who knew too much concerning 


260 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


poisons. That the bloodhounds were put upon 
the track of my good master in this manner 
was not known at the first trial, but afterward 
was explained by Cardinal Bembo, who had 
the story from Be Bovere, after he became Pope 
Julius, and who so answered the charge when 
Dr. Zanelli was brought a second time before 
the court. 

But, as I have said, at this first trial, when, 
strange to say, the only charge preferred was 
that he had concocted poison, I brought him 
safely off, testifying what I have related to 
you, and that my dear master’s endeavor had 
always been to frustrate the evil designs of that 
wicked man, Caesar Borgia. I showed one of 
the comfits — which by good fortune I had 
preserved— and I testified how I had seen Caesar 
Borgia give it with others to our parrot, and how 
the creature had immediately died ; I fetched 
the director from Murano also, who brought 
one of the test goblets and some test beads 
which Dr. Zanelli had made, and their efficacy 
was proved in court ; for we dissolved the com- 
fit in soup, and causing a dog to lap it, it died 
as the parrot had done ; and then putting one 
of the glass beads in the liquor it melted, and 


C^SAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


261 


pouring more into the glass it shivered, though 
water, wine, and other liquids had made no im- 
pression upon it. 

Thus we proved triumphantly that Dr. Za- 
nelli had invented a test of the Borgia poison, 
and the inference was (the charge of poisoning 
being preferred by the Pope), that it was the 
revenge of himself and his son. But though 
Dr. Zanelli was acquitted at this time, there re- 
mained, alas ! a vague and unreasonable idea in 
the minds of the judges that his knowledge of 
the composition of the poison, as proved by his 
power to detect and counteract it, might have 
been due to his having been its original framer, 
and that the Pope’s knowledge of Dr. Zanelli 
had been gained in this way, and his charge, 
though reflecting no credit upon himself, 
was still a true one. 

But Caesar Borgia, perceiving that he had 
gained shame instead of the revenge he sought, 
was not content to rest the matter there, but — 
as I confldently believe, though am not able to 
certify— caused my master to be spied upon by 
his minions ; and having ascertained in what 
manner he could be most easily attacked, in- 
vented a new and more diabolical charge, and 


262 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


lodged the same with the Holy Office, accusing 
my dear master this time of having introduced 
the plague into Venice, being bribed thereto by 
the Sultan of Turkey. 

What gave color to this suspicion was the 
fact that my master, during the last visitation 
of the plague, had treated his patients in a new 
and daring manner, being attended only by his 
disciple, a wealthy Greek named Chrysolarus, 
who had come from Constantinople to study 
with him. This foreigner very foolishly made 
a great show of his riches, indulging in all sorts 
of extravagances. Out of gratitude to our mas- 
ter,* he presented him with a cimeter made in 
Damascus, which was produced in evidence 
against Dr. Zanelli at his trial as a gift from 
the Sultan. Nor was this dastardly man 
there to explain, for on the arrest of our mas- 
ter he fled for his life, when, had he remain- 
ed, he might have cleared our dear friend 
by showing that the transfusion of blood 
which he had practised had effected the cure 
of all his patients. And he alone could have 
done this, for he was the most advanced of 
all of Dr. Zanelli’s discii)les, and the only 
one to whom this marvellous secret had been 


a^SAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


263 


confided. The craven had indeed good reason 
to fear that his testimony wonld not be received, 
and that he also wonld fall under the ban of 
the Church ; but this in no wise excused him. 
Howbeifc, by a merciful dispensation of Provi- 
dence, Pope Alexander died just at this time, 
and his son fell into disgrace, so that there was 
a change in all matters connected with the 
Church ; for now Giuliano de Rovere was Pope, 
and there was a new Inquisitor, who reported 
the causes waiting for decision to his Holiness ; 
and Pope Julius sent Cardinal Bembo to Ven- 
ice, who told the cause of Csesar Borgia’s hatred 
of Dr. Zanelli, and the Pope ordered a stay in 
the proceeding ; so that during his pontificate 
the matter was not brought up, and Dr. Zanelli 
and his friends took comfort, thinking it was 
ended. But later Pope J ulius dying and Leo 
X. succeeding to the papacy, he sought to curry 
favor with those of a sterner sort by fanning 
the fiames of the Inquisition, and the old charges 
were brought forward again, and many people 
were burned in towns round about us. Then 
we saw how unfortunate it was that Dr. Zanelli 
had not been brought to trial in the pontificate 
of Julius, who was his friend (for he owed his 


264 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 


life to the doctor’s invention), so ending the 
matter, instead of laying it upon the table to 
be brought up when he could no longer protect 
him. Cardinal Bembo did his best for him, as, 
indeed, always (for he testified in the matter of 
the book of Pomponazio — which asserted that 
the immortality of the soul could not be 
proved, which book the patriarch of Venice 
burned publicly as heretical— that he had read 
the book with pleasure and found it perfectly 
conformable). Cardinal Bembo, I say, took 
his part, as he ever did that of the accused ; 
but he could not prove the finger of Csesar Bor- 
gia in this second plot, he being so long dead, 
and the poison of his which he had prepared 
being of such slow effect that it seemed incredi- 
ble that he was the author of it. Moreover, 
the affair was judged not by the Church alone, 
but by the Council of Ten as well ; and here 
lay the chief danger to the doctor ; for while in 
matters of heresy the Signoria did not concern 
itself, and would willingly have left all to the 
opinion of Cardinal Bembo, and have protected 
one of its citizens against the severity of the 
Church, when, on the contrary, the safety of 


C^SAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 


265 


many citizens was concerned, and their death 
aimed at by a foreign enemy, here was matter 
of State importance, to be judged and punished 
by the State. And so our dear master was 
judged and suffered, being strangled by the 
civil arm and his body burned by the Inquisi- 
tion. But one man could have saved our mas- 
ter, and that was Chrysolarus, and proclama- 
tion was made for him by the State ; but he 
came not. 

This, then, is a record of the secret causes 
which wrought his condemnation. I cannot 
but regard it as a blessing that his wife, dear 
lady, had died before these cruel events. He 
left but one son, a lad who had not the horror 
of seeing his father’s body burned ; for after 
taking leave of Dr. Zanelli in prison, after his 
condemnation, this son was hurried out of the 
city by friends of the family, but by whom I 
know not ; and they fearing the continued rage 
of his enemies, have so successfully concealed 
his hiding-place that we have never been able 
to find any trace of him. All this I have 
written out for you, sweet lady, knowing your 
gratitude for our dear master, who cured you 


266 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


during the plague, and would have healed your 
beloved Giorgione had he been permitted ; and 
so I rest, 

Your faithful servitor, 

Orazio Yecellt. 


CHAPTER XV. 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


FTER all, though Orazio’s 
letter had gi\^en a clearer 
picture of the prog- 
ress of the trial or 
trials than the rec- 
ord which the Inquisitor 
had published, it had proved 
nothing new excepting the 
existence of a powerful en- 
emy. 

Van, who had finished 
his translation of the diary, 
was also obliged to confess that his study 
had developed nothing in regard to Dr. Za- 
nelli’s treatment of his plague-smitten patients, 
though it threw some interesting side-lights on 
Venetian society of that period. He spoke of 
the charming reunions at Titian’s house, and 
of the many illustrious people whom he met 



268 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


there— most lovingly of Sansovino, and admir- 
ingly of his sculpture, especially the door of the 
sacristy of St. Mark’s, in which he introduced 
the portrait of Titian and other friends. He 
praised most his library and the mint, which 
Sansovino’s son described as ‘‘ a notable edifice, 
all interwoven within and without of cut stone, 
bricks, and iron, without so much as a foot of 
wood, so that for strength and for being fire- 
proof there is none other which can compare 
with it.” The only man of whom he spoke 
with dislike was Pietro Aretino, a comic poet 
of the day, who satirized every one with a 
scurrilous wit, which was often past endur- 
ance. He related that Tintoretto, finding his 
sarcasms not at all to his taste, invited the 
satirist to come to his studio, and when he had 
him safely within the apartment began to play 
in a menacing manner with a long pistol or 
arquebus. 

‘‘What are you doing?” Aretino asked in 
alarm. 

“I am measuring you,” Tintoretto replied, 
“ and I want you to remember that your height 
is exactly three lengths of my pistol.” 

Aretino took the hint and never afterward 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


269 


caricatured Tintoretto. Aretino’s epitaph was 
written in Latin during his lifetime by an ac- 
quaintance, and has been well translated by 
Mr. F. B. Sanborn : 

“ Old Time, that all things will devour, 

Beneath this stone has hid the head' 

Of Aretine, whose verses sour 
Spared not the living or the dead. 

His ink has blackened the good name 
Of princes, whose enduring fame 
Survived the cofSn and the pall. 

And if he never did blaspheme 
Our Lord Himself, the cause, I ween. 

Was this : he knew Him not at all.” 

Tib assisted Yan in his translations. She 
grew very much interested in the old alchemist, 
though she had no idea how closely his fate 
was interwoven with her own. She had, as we 
know, a facility for rhyming, and after poring 
for an afternoon over the old record, she threw 
her impressions into the following verses : 

AN AFTERNOON WITH TITIAN. 

They are gone, those days Elysian, 

In the studio of Titian, 

In the garden by the water, 

Where the painter’s peerless daughter 
Listened to her lover’s suit. 


270 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Kindly smiled old Sansovino, 

Scoffed the witty Aretino, 

Bitter wit like grapes from lava, 

While Lavinia’s lifted salver 
Passed the luscious, ripened fruit. 

Many a noble, grand Venetian 
Graced the garden fetes of Titian. 
While she posed, his Violante, 

Bembo sang the songs of Dante, 

And Orazio touched the lute. 

Who could choose but to adore her ? 
When he painted her as Flora 
Aretino ceased his story. 

Struck with beauty’s charm and glory, 
And the singers all were mute. 


Tib explained that she was not sure that Car- 
dinal Bembo really sang ; but he doubtless re- 
cited the sonnets of Dante and Petrarch, for he 
edited editions of their works, which were pub- 
lished in Venice by the celebrated printer 
Aldus, as well as his own canzonets and dis- 
quisitions on love, over-gay and light for a car- 
dinal and the keeper of St. Mark’s Library, and 
more befitting the time when, as secretary to 
Caterina Cornaro, he led the amusements of her 
merry, mimic court at Asola, near Venice, or 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


271 


dedicated his poem on Platonic Love” to his 
patroness, Liicrezia Borgia. 

‘‘As I read his character,” said Winnie, 
‘ ‘ Bembo was a man of an easy conscience, such 
as Browning describes : 

“ ‘ Sworn fast to tonsured pate, plain heaven’s celibate, 

And yet earth’s clear accepted servitor, 

And fit companion for the like of you. 

Yon gay Abati with the well-turned leg, 

And rose i’ the hat-rim, canon’s cross at neck. 

And silk mask in the pocket of the gown. ’ 

But he was not a murderer and poisoner like 
the Borgias ; he was simply too luxurious, like 
the Medici.” 

“ The Medicis were not so very far behind the 
Borgias in the gentle art of poisoning, ’ ’ Tib re- 
plied. “ Do yon remember the old Capello 
Palace that we passed the other day on the St. 
Apollinares Canal ? I have just looked up the 
history of the romantic daughter of the house, 
Bianca da Capello. She eloped in 1548 with a 
Florentine banker, Pietro Bonaventnri, and for 
that rash act was placed under the ban of the 
republic. But Bonaventuri died, and the 
young widow married Duke Cosimo, De 
Medici’s son, and became Grrand Duchess of 


272 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


Tuscany, whereupon the Signoria removed the 
ban and declared her its own specially beloved 
daughter. She could not have the bucentaur 
take her to church, as she might have had under 
similar circumstances in Venice, but she would 
have a spectacular wedding procession. So she 
had a gilded chariot constructed, which must 
have looked like a Barnum band wagon, and 
further heightened the ‘ greatest-show-on-earth ’ 
effect by writing to the Pope, who was a cousin 
of her husband’s, to send her some lions to 
draw them.” 

‘‘ What a festive young lady !” said Winnie. 

Did she do anything else particularly interest- 
ing V ’ 

1 was not impressed by anything in her 
after-history excepting her death. It was a 
pity that she did not carry one of Dr. Zanelli’s 
poison-test goblets with her when she left Ven- 
ice, for both she and her husband died, poi- 
soned, it is thought, by Cardinal Francesco de 
Medici.” 

‘‘I wonder,” said Van, “ whether your fair 
Venetian is the Medicean archduchess of whom 
Story speaks as having been poisoned in his 
description of the examination of the coffins in 


SHBEBS AND PATCHES. 


273 


the Medici Chapel? No, it was still another ; 
blit listen to his account. The same thing 
might have been said as truly of Bianca. He 
describes first the magnificence of the chapel. 
Its cost was about five million dollars. Michael 
Angelo’s colossal statues were intended only as 
adjuncts. 

‘ All that wealth and taste could do has 
been done to celebrate and perpetuate the mem- 
ory of those royal dukes that reigned over 
Florence in its prosperous days. But what of 
the princely personages themselves ! Their 
bodies had been placed in the subterranean 
vaults of this chapel. In 1818 there had been 
a rumor that these Medicean coffins had been 
violated and robbed. An examination was 
made. Hark, parchment-like faces were seen 
with their golden locks as rich as ever and 
twisted with gems and pearls and costly nets. 
The cardinal-princes still wore their mitres and 
red cloaks, their glittering rings, their crosses 
of white enamel, their jacinths and amethysts 
and sapphires— all had survived their priestly 
selves. 'Giovanni delle Bande N ere was here, 
his battles all over, his bones scattered and 
loose within his iron armor, and his rusted hel- 


274 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


met with his visor clown. The two bodies which 
were found in best preservation were those of 
the Grand Duchess Giovanna of Austria and 
her daughter Anna. Corruption had scarcely 
touched them ; and there they lay as if they 
had just died — the mother in red satin trimmed 
with lace, her red silk stockings and high- 
heeled shoes, the earrings hanging from her 
ears, and her blonde hair fresh as ever. And 
so, after centuries had passed, the truth became 
evident of the rumor that ran through Florence 
at the time of their death that they had died of 
poison. The arsenic which had taken their 
lives had preserved their bodies in death.’ ” 

Dr. Zanelli’s diary was not entirely devoted 
to observations on men and society. Yan read 
them several pages which stated his aims as a 
physiciaii and his views on what he considered 
the legitimate practice of his profession and the 
scope of medical science. This part of the diary 
seemed to Yan a curious mixture of the super- 
stition of the time and the daring of the orig- 
inal investigator, who, in his gropings, almost 
anticipated some of the discoveries of modern 
science. 

I have studied,” wrote Dr. Zanelli, ‘‘ magic, 


SHREDS AND DATCHES. 


275 


alchemy, chirurgery, and astrology. The last 
has the elements of a great science wrapped np 
in it, but it is more adapted for the mathemati- 
cian than the physician. It may develop new 
discoveries in the geograi^hy of the heavenly 
bodies, so that we may in time receive messages 
from their inhabitants or even journey to distant 
worlds. But I am convinced that astrology has 
nothing to do with the curing of disease or even, 
as is now firmly believed, any utility in fore- 
telling the death of man ; therefore I have aban- 
doned the study. Magic I hold to have a place 
in the education and practice of the physician, for 
magic has to do with mind, and the operations 
of the mind do most sensibly affect bodily health. 
While a student at the university at Padua, it 
was my good fortune to attend a course of lec- 
tures by the learned Professor Theophrastus 
Bombast, who takes a new view of magic, and 
is himself a magician of great power. By him 
I was initiated into this great secret of the sci- 
ence. ^ The exercise of magic does not require 
any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making 
of circles or signs ; it requires neither benedic- 
tions nor maledictions in words ; it requires 
only a strong faith. By faith, imagination. 


276 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


and will we may accomplish whatever we may 
desire. By the power of faith the apostles ac- 
complished great things, and saints performed 
their miracles by the power of faith. A dead 
saint cannot cure anybody.’ Thus much said 
my teacher ; and yet have I known the sick 
really cured by the means of relics. The kiss- 
ing of a bone of a saint— nay, even a bone that 
purported merely to be that of a saint, while the 
wicked custodian told me that it was in reality 
that of a dog. Here the cure was due to the 
faith or the imagination of the subject, and not 
to the efficacy of the relic, and was, therefore, 
not a divine miracle, but a phenomena of magic. 
Therefore do I hold that magic is a legitimate 
study for the physician ; and this science have 
I reserved to myself for future investigation. 
Its greatest adepts are the Hindoo Buddhists ; 
and it is my intention some day to travel to the 
far Orient, and there devote myself to the study 
of occultism and the cure of bodily diseases by 
the operations of the mind. Meantime, and 
until I can give myself the privilege of study- 
ing the Hindoo sages, I have made myself ac- 
complished as an alchemist, and shall seek by 
observation and experiment to make new dis- 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


277 


coveries in this art. 1 have learned all that the 
science of those that have gone before can tell 
me, and notably much from the Arabian al- 
chemists in their universities at Toledo and 
Cordova in Spain ; but yet I am convinced that 
there is much more to be invented in the true 
use of alchemy for the physician, which is not 
the search for the philosopher’s stone to turn 
all metal to gold, but to fin^ new chemicals 
which can be used as remedies for disease. The 
action of minerals upon the human frame, in 
their noxious forms, has already been proved 
in the many poisons in use at the present day, 
poisons which, many of them, have an entirely 
opposite effect ; therefore I am convinced that 
certain ones may be used as antidotes for others, 
and this action of poisons I am studying in a 
careful series of original experiments. And as 
healing may be effected not only by dosing of 
medicaments, both of minerals and simples, 
but also by chirurgery, through operations of 
the knife, and through the blood, both by the 
letting of it, as in bleeding for fevers, and 
equally by the skilful staunching of wounds, 
and also wonderfully by the injection of medica- 
ments into the blood ; therefore, I have rendered 


278 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


myself an expert chirurgeon. I am studying 
especially the blood, both by my own experi- 
ments with animals, and by gathering such 
data as 1 can from barbers, soldiers, huntsmen, 
headsmen, shepherds, and slaughterers of ani- 
mals, believing that it is by observation and 
experiment rather than by following old fables 
that we arrive at knowledge. These, then, be 
the reasons why I reject the title of astrologer 
and claim those of chirurgeon and alchemist, 
hoping also to attain to that of magician, but 
not claiming as yet to have mastered the mys- 
teries of the magical operations of mind upon 
matter.” 

After this exposition of his aims and views 
there followed a record of his experiments in 
finding antidotes for poisons, and careful de- 
scriptions of the progress of many disorders ; 
but there were none of the plague. The diary 
stopped abruptly with the year 1511, the date of 
Giorgione’s death. And yet this was the 
plague year, and Dr. Zanelli lived and labored 
for a decade longer. Why was there no regis- 
ter of his observations during this period ? As 
Van examined the book more closely, he became 
convinced that there had been a record, and 


SHREDS AHD PATCHES. 


279 


that it had been torn out. Why was this ? 
Had the author himself destroyed it as contain- 
ing criminating revelations ? Or had it been 
burned with his library by the Inquisition ? If 
so, why had any portion of the book been 
spared ? What he had read he reported on to 
the contessa as perfectly innocent and sane ; 
but this did not in the least satisfy her. 

His insanity probably began to develop at 
this very period,” she said. The destruction 
of the record was in all likelihood his own act, 
since the Inquisition would undoubtedly have 
made no nice distinctions in favor of exempt- 
ing the record of innocent years from the 
flames. It is the work of a cunning mind 
which destroys damaging evidence, and per- 
fectly consistent with insanity. My only hope 
now is to learn something of this singular man 
and of other members of our family from my 
husband’s aunt, for I have a premonition that 
Angelo will not be successful in India.” 

The contessa’ s realized. 

The next letter from Angelo brought the dis- 
api)ointing information that he had reached 
the town where Dr. Chrysolarus had resided 
only to find that the Dr. Zanelli to whom he 


280 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


referred could not possibly have been his ances- 
tor. 

“We pored over old paj^ers until late in the 
night,” he wrote, “to be intrigued at times by 
strange similarities, but to be convinced at last 
by the incontestable evidence of dates that this 
is only a strange similarity in names. The Dr. 
Zanelli whose papers I have just examined 
lived here in India for many years after our 
ancestor was executed in Venice. The hand in 
which the records are written is very different 
from the precise script of the old alchemist, 
though his manner of experimenting and of re- 
cording his experiments is marvellously similar. 
It is also hardly possible that the Chrysolarus 
whose partner he was could have been the same 
man who studied with my ancestor, though he 
may have been of the same family ; for my host, 
while he is certain that he was originally of 
Greek extraction, believes that his branch of 
the family have lived for several centuries in 
India, while the Venetian student or spy came 
from Constantinople, and was heard from by 
members of our family as living in Constantino- 
ple after the alchemist’s death. So, dearest 
mother, though greatly puzzled by the baffling 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


281 


coincidence of two such unusual names as Za- 
nelli and Chrysolarus appearing in conjunction 
in two such distant places at nearly the same 
time, we are forced to the conclusion that they 
were different men. I wish that I might have 
proved them to be the same, for there is no 
doubt that the Indian pair were as eminent in 
science as they were benevolent and upright in 
character, of which there is abundant evidence. 
My host, too, is a most amiable and cultured 
man, but driven and overworked. He has or- 
ganized a hospital, in which the sick are gath- 
ered, but it cannot contain all the applicants, 
and he cannot answer all the calls for his at- 
tendance. In the presence of so much misery 
my own anxiety seems the acme of selfishness. 
My quest is closed, but it matters not. Here is 
work for me to do, and here I shall remain for 
the j)resent, nursing these poor people. If I 
could induce some physician with any knowl- 
edge of this dread disease to join me here I 
would not grudge the expense, and I beg yon, 
mother, to see some of the savants at the con- 
vention now in progress in Venice and see what 
can be done.” 

The contessa did not need to advise with any 


282 


WITCU WINNIE IN VENICE, 


of these learned people. She had become con- 
vinced of Van’s fitness for such an enterprise, 
and they quickly came to an agreement, for 
this was just the opportunity for which Van 
had been hoping, and he hastened away to join 
Angelo in India. 

It was Winnie’s turn now to bear absence and 
waiting bravely, but both she and Tib found 
comfort in working for others. They kept up 
their sketching and reading also, for they re- 
minded each other that their days of privilege 
in Venice were almost over, and a conversation 
took place shortly after this which precipitated 
their return to America. They were chatting 
with the contessa on the balcony when Winnie 
chanced to remark : ‘‘I want, before I go 
home, to make a drawing of the most typical 
of the old Venetians, and I have decided that I 
have found him in Andrea Verocchio’s statue 
of the ‘ Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni.’ We 
know of him through history only as a soldier 
of fortune, a mercenary soldier, selling his 
sword to the State for twelve hundred ducats a 
month ; but look at the statue, and you can see 
wdiy the sculptor deserved his appellation ' An- 
drew the Keen-eyed.’ There is so much of in- 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


283 


dividual character there that, as I studied it 
from the doorway opi^osite, I felt that we 
would never have known the man if Verocchio 
had not placed him there for all time to face 
down his detractors. I believe that Ruskin is 
right when he says that there is not a more 
glorious work of sculpture existing in the 
world. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Ruskin must be taken with a grain of salt, 
I find,” said Tib ; but if he had said eques- 
trian statue, instead of including all sculpture, I 
would have agreed with him.” 

‘‘We always hear,” said the contessa, “ that 
the statue was partly the work of Leopardi ; 
but Verocchio was by far the greater sculptor. 
I wonder how much of the work was really 
hisf’ 

“ I fancy all the real art part,” said Winnie. 
“ Leopardi merely cast it from Verocchio’s de- 
signs after his death. Let me read you what 
Perkins says of the statue in his ‘ Tuscan Sculp- 
tors.’ He is always measured and Just, and 
you will accept his estimate, if not that of Rus- 
kin. Listen to this extract, and tell me if I 
have not chosen well in taking him for my typi- 
cal Venetian : 


284 


WITOU WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘‘The stalwart figure of Colleoni, clad in 
armor, with a helmet upon his head, is the 
most perfect embodiment of the idea which 
history gives us of an Italian condottiere. As 
his horse, with arched neck and slightly bent 
head, paces slowly forward, he, sitting straight 
in his saddle, turns to look over his left shoul- 
der, showing us a sternly marked countenance, 
with deep-set eyes, whose intensity of expression 
reveals a character of iron which never recoiled 
before any obstacle. The stern simplicity of 
the rider is happily set off by the richness of 
detail lavished upon the saddle, the breastplate, 
the crupper, and the knotted mane of his 
steed ; and the effect of the whole group is 
heightened by the very elegant pedestal upon 
which Leopardi has placed it.’ ” 

Tib had listened attentively. “Yes,” she 
said, “ he is certainly the type of the warrior ; 
but I like better the kind of man we see in the 
portraits of Venetian scholars, artists, and 
statesmen. I think it is Stearns who says that 
there is much more of pathos than of pride in 
the faces of the old senators and doges in the 
portraits in the Ducal Palace ; that they look 
careworn and sleepless. In speaking of Tin to- 


SIFREBS Am) PATCHES. 


285 


retto’s i^ortrait of Pasqiiale Cicogna lie notes a 
look of judicial severity which he thinks in- 
separable from a high public position, ‘ combined 
with such purity, benevolence, and amiability 
that we accept him at once as the type of the 
noble Yenetian.’ I have always thought that 
Count Angelo grown older would look like that 
portrait ; and another remark of Stearns’s so 
exactly describes him : ‘ When you meet a 
nobleman of real ability, in whose face there is 
no appearance of family pride, you may feel 
sure that he is a true aristocrat.’ ” 

There was no affectation in the utter absence 
of self-consciousness with which Tib spoke of 
Count Angelo. She was deeply interested in 
him ; but there was no thought of herself in 
this interest. Every one else, however, was 
embarrassed by the remark, and there was a 
little pause in the conversation, during which 
Winnie wrathfully addressed her in her 
thoughts as a little idiot, and wondered when 
she would hnd out that she was in love. 

The contessa also winced at this frank ex- 
pression of admiration, and there was a look of 
almost motherly pity in her face, though she 
joined in the conversation in a cold, forced 


286 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


voice. “The Venetian nobles had many of 
them very little to be proud of,” was her first 
remark. ‘ ‘ At one time, when the republic was 
in need of money, patents of nobility were sold 
by the State at fifty thousand ducats apiece, 
and seventy families profited by the occasion 
to frankly buy the rank, which is as truly sold 
to-day when a poor noble makes a rich marriage. ’ ’ 

“ The transaction you speak of was more cred- 
itable,” said Tib, “ because it might be consid- 
ered that the State was conferring a decoration 
for a very generous gift for the cause of patriot- 
ism.” 

The contessa shook her head. “ A sale in 
both instances,” she said. “ If American girls 
only knew, as I do, how heavily the coronet 
rests on the head of many a fair marchesa and 
contessa they would not be so mad for titles. 
How is it Owen Meredith speaks of the season 
in London ? 

^ ‘ ‘ When strawberries are sold in pottles like sheaves, 

And young ladies are sold for the strawberry leaves ’ ” 

“ Oh, I see,” said Winnie ; “ the strawberry 
leaves between the pearls on the coronet. I 
never understood the allusion before. Ade- 
laide threw away a coronet in France, and I 


SHREDS AED PATCHES. 


287 


don’t think that any of ns jdace an overweening 
value upon them ; but I can’t understand, my 
dear contessa, why you, of all persons, should 

“ ‘ slight the highly bom with rank afflicted, 

Or treat with lofty scorn the well-connected.’ ” 

There was a spice of malice in Winnie’s fling, 
for she could not comprehend the contessa ’s mo- 
tive for a remark which she felt was unjustly 
directed at Tib. 

My own marriage was happier than most 
international ones,” the contessa replied ; but 
national temperaments as well as customs and 
education are so different that such connec- 
tions rarely prove congenial.” 

Tib did not understand this fencing between 
the contessa and Winnie, but she vaguely felt 
a chill in the atmosphere, as though they were 
sailing near an unseen iceberg, and, as in the 
flgure which it suggested, knew that the chill 
meant danger, and so tactfully piloted the con- 
versation, as she thought, into other channels. 

I do not wonder that so many foreigners 
love to live in Venice, though the Palazzo Pez- 
zonico. Browning’s home, with all its ‘arched 
windows and pillared balconies, ’ seems too cold 
and grand for any sense of home feeling or 


288 


V/ITGII WINNIE IN VENICE. 


inirtli. I thought the rear entrance far more 
13ictiiresque than the front one. Its ceilings, 
by Tiepolo and Tiepoletto, and its grand pro- 
portions all help give it an impression of vast- 
ness, but the very spirit of desolation seems to 
brood in the rooms.” 

It was not so in the days of the Kez- 
zonicos,” said the contessa. ‘‘You know Pope 
Clement XIII. was of that family. It is one of 
our best ; and when Joseph II. visited Venice, 
in 1769, the republic gave him a concert in this 
palace, said to be one of the most si 3 lendid en- 
tertainments ever given in the city.” 

It must have been warmer and brighter 
even in Browning’s lifetime,” said Tib; ‘‘but 
now I could not help feeling as if it were his 
tomb, especially when I read that tablet on the 
wall : 


A 

Roberto Browning, 
Morto in questo Palazzo., 
Venezia Pose. 

Open my heart, and you will see 
Graved inside of it Italy. 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


289 


I can understand tliose words, and the inscrip- 
tion on Rawdon Brown’s tomb : 

“ ‘ Anghis Brown am I, 

Although my heart’s Venetian.’ ” 


‘ ‘ Who was Rawdon Brown V ’ asked Win- 
nie. 

He was an Englishman,” replied Tib, who 
came to V enice intending to stay a week, and 
lived here forty years, never leaving it until his 
death. Here is the sonnet which Browning 
wrote about the incident. I found it in an old 
number of the Century : 


“ ‘ Sighed Rawdon Brown : “ Yes, I’m departing, Toni ! 
I needs must, just this once before I die. 

Revisit England : Anglus Brown am I, 

Although my heart’s Venetian. Yes, old crony — 
Venice and London — London’s Death the bony 
Compared with Life — that’s Venice ! What a sky, 

A sea, this morning 1 One last look, good-by. 

Ca Pesaro ! No lion — I’m a coney 
To weep ! I’m dazzled ; ’tis that sun I view 
Rippling the — the — Cospetto, Toni ! Down 
With carpet bag, and off with valise straps ! 

Bella Venezia, non ti lascio pin ! ” 

Nor did Brown ever leave her. Well, perhaps 
Browning next week may find himself quite Brown.’ 


290 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘Do you know,” Tib continued, alter a 
pause, ‘Hliat is exactly the way I feel? I 
believe I love Venice as much as Count Angelc' 
does. I cannot bear to think of going back, 
and yet America is my home, and father and 
mother and my lifework are there, and I must 
not become de- Americanized. ” 

‘‘I don’t know about that,” Winnie replied 
with intention. ‘‘ Your lifework appears to me 
to be to paint and to draw, and if you can find a 
way of disposing of your work while you do it 
here, perhaps your parents will join you, and 
you can live in some old Venetian palace, and 
listen, as we do now, from its cushioned bal- 
cony, to the caressing plash of the sea upon its 
marble steps.” 

Tib’s eyes shone with eagerness ; but the 
contessa spoke up quickly in a voice that quiv- 
ered a little with suppressed excitement, though 
she held herself in admirable control. 

“ I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. 
Smith when I was visiting my father, and I 
hardly think that they would fit into Venetian 
life. I cannot imagine Mr. Smith loitering on 
a balcony. He is far too energetic to be con- 
tent with our dreamy existence. I fear that it 


SHREDS AND PATCHES 


291 


would be a great mistake to tear them away 
from their familiar surroundings.” 

Yes,” Tib assented ; “ father could never 
learn to ‘ loiter.’ He might be so old and lame 
that he would have to hobble, but it would be 
briskly.” 

‘‘ But you know,” Winnie insisted, that 
Henry James says there are two kinds of life in 
Venice, and the Grand Canal ‘ may mean to 
you the balcony of a high and well-loved pal- 
ace, the memory of irresistible evenings of end- 
less lingering and looking, or the restlessness 
of a fresh curiosity and methodical inquiry in 
a gondola piled with references.’ ” 

Gondola life would suit father exactly,” 
Tib exclaimed, clapping her hands ; he would 
never weary of the surprises of new exploration 
and the verification of all his odd scraps of in- 
formation, for he has been a great reader. And 
mother is so calm and peaceful, a balcony like 
this would be an endless delight to her. To 
give them the evening of their life in V enice ! 
Ah ! that is something to look forward to, to 
work for with every power of my being.” 

Believe me, no,” said the contessa gently 
but firmly. They would be very homesick 


292 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


here. I tried it with my own father. He spent 
a month here, and then went home disgusted 
with the shiftless ways of the Italians. He 
could never see the picturesqeness of dirt, and 
unpleasant odors drove him crazy. He used to 
say that Dickens was the only writer that had 
told the truth about Venice. There were sev- 
eral passages in ‘ Little Dorrit ’ which he was 
so fond of quoting and applying that I have 
them quite by heart : ‘ Dungeon -like tenements, 
with their walls besmeared with a thousand 
downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy 
aperture in them had been weeping tears of rust 
into the Adriatic for centuries, or blotched with 
mould, as if missionary maps were bursting out 
of them to impart geographical knowledge ; 
barred windows, which seemed to belong to 
jails for criminal rats, with their lattice blinds 
all hanging askew and something draggled and 
dirty dangling out of most of them.’ He said 
that when he wanted the sea, he preferred it 
from the deck of a good ship, and he did not 
want it to follow him into his very house, so 
that he could never get the odor of bilge water 
and an ebb tide on a weedy shore out of his 
nostrils. It was all a great mistake, and he 


8UREDS AND PATCHES. 


293 


went back to Soup Haven with infinite relief, 
and nsed to declare that the sunsets on Long 
Island Sound were far more beautiful than any 
he ever saw in Venice. Think of that ! Why, 
there is no place in the world where sunsets 
are so beautiful as here. Who do yon think 
has best painted onr sunsets ? To my mind, 
Ziem is too gaudy, Turner’s splendid visions 
too unreal, and Hico is brilliant, but artificial 
and chic. Where is the perfect Venice 

Only here,” Tib replied, for Winnie was 
strangely silent. She was watching the con- 
tessa with somethiog like anger in her scrutiny ; 
and Tib, who longed to make peace, followed 
the contessa’s lead. If your point of view is 
the balcony,” she said, everything is moving 
before yon ; if a gondola, then yon are moving. 
Did yon not experience a feeling of phantas- 
magoria the other evening when the solid Cam- 
panile, silhouetted againsr the palpitating sky, 
seemed, with its reflection, actually to waver 
with the rocking of onr gondola ? That shim- 
mering incandescence cannot be painted — it can 
only be described, and I think that of all writers 
Shelley has done it best. Do yon remem- 
ber ; 


294 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


“ ‘ And before that charm of light, 

As within a furnace bright, 

Column, tower, and dome and spire 
IShine like obelisks of lire, 

Pointing with inconstant motion 
From the altar of the ocean 
To the sulphur-tinted skies.’ ” 

‘‘Exactly; but it takes either a poet or an 
artist to feel that. My father was neither. 
Take my advice, my dear, and do not urge your 
parents to come to Venice.’’ 

The contessa vanished into the house as she 
spoke, and Winnie clenched her small fist and 
shook it menacingly at her retreating figure. 

“ What does it all mean ?” Tib asked, won- 
deringly. 

“ I should think you would ask,” Winnie re- 
plied with warmth. “ It means that she is a 
meddling, viperous old thing, and wants to 
make us leave Venice never to return.” 

“Oh, no!” Tib exclaimed. “The contessa 
has been very kind to us — you know she has, 
Winnie. How can you talk so f ’ 

“ She was kind enough until she discovered 
that Count Angelo liked you, and then she 
packed him off to India, and now she is trying 
to get you away before he returns 1” 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


295 


How absurd ! The contessa is too clever a 
woman to imagine such an impossible state of 
affairs, and she would never have acted upon 
such a supposition unless the danger really 
existed.” 

‘‘ Well, it does exist.” 

Tib flushed painfully. Winnie, you are 
carrying your joke too far.” 

I am not joking ; and it is not a flgment of 
anybody’s imagination, but actual fact. He 
told me so himself.” 

In the excitement of the moment Winnie had 
gone too far. She realized suddenly that Count 
Angelo had told her in confidence, and she 
pulled herself sharply together, and in answer 
to Tib’s questions, Told you what ?” ‘‘ Who 

told you ?” replied rather lamely, ‘‘ that the 
contessa did not approve of her son’s liking 
for you. It was Van told me, and the contessa 
tried to make Yan her confederate. She want- 
ed him to urge us to return to America ; but 
Van had no notion of aiding her — quite the 
contrary. If Count Angelo has not already 
proposed to you, he will after Yan gets hold of 
him.” 

‘‘ O Winnie!” Tib cried in real distress. 


296 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


‘‘ How could you be so unkind, so disloyal as 
to talk about me in such a way to Van !” 

I don’t see why you should be so indignant ; 
all I said was that I believed you and Count 
Angelo were really in love with one another, 
but were two precious innocents who did not 
know your own minds.” 

And you took it upon yourselves to en- 
lighten us, and are playing a little drama like 
that with which the friends of Beatrice and 
Benedict amused themselves — you to try to 
make me believe that Count Angelo cares for me 
when he does not, and Van to tell Count Angelo 
that I love him. O Winnie, Winnie, I would 
not have believed it of you !” 

How, Tib, listen to reason. Yan will not 
do anything of the kind. He is discreet, and 
he has the highest esteem for you. You may 
trust him implicitly. And as for the contessa, 
she is only a spiteful old cat, and we won’t pay 
her whims the least attention.” 

But Tib was seriously hurt and indignant, 
and though she forgave Winnie, knowing that 
her friend had intended it all for her good, she 
could not bear to remain in Venice until the 
count’s return. She had no more faith in 


SHREDS AND PATCHES 


297 


Van’s discretion than in Winnie’s, and had no 
mind to remain a passive victim of their plots. 
She argued to herself, too, that to remain, now 
that she knew what they were trying to do, 
was to countenance their plans and to be in 
some sort an agent in them. ‘‘ It could never 
have been in any case,” she told herself. 

Lolo and I do not love one another ; but it 
was such a beautiful friendship. Why did 
they spoil it, for now all the sweet unconscious- 
ness is gone, and it can never be quite the same. 
I have lost my little playmate. He can never 
be Lolo to me again or I Nellie Zanelli.” The 
contessa’s unkindness hurt her cruelly. If it 
had been true,” she wondered, ‘‘ why should 
she have wished to separate us ? It is only her 
own story over again ; our parents were friends 
and neighbors. Her father, the old sea cap- 
tain, had a high respect for mine, and used to 
love to sit on our porch and spin sea yarns and 
watch the Scup Haven sunsets. Why should a 
title make such a difference ? Did Angelo 
share this feeling ? she wondered. Was all this 
quest to vindicate a dead ancestor’s honor only 
an idle excuse for slipping away out of danger 
when he felt himself being drawn toward a 


298 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


mesalliance f She pressed her burning face into 
her pillow. There was no such thing as honor 
or nobility or love anywhere. What was she 
saying ? Yes, they were all waiting for her at 
home in the rugged father and the devoted 
mother whom those people despised. And she, 
who knew their worth, how had she neglected 
and slighted them, living with perfect content 
away from them all these months in a fool’s 
paradise of dream and cloud ! But she had 
awakened at last, and knew where the true hap- 
piness waited for her. Heartsick and wounded 
more by the supposed slight to her loved par- 
ents than to herself, Tib decided upon imme- 
diate departure. Winnie would havw preferred 
to have delayed until Van’s return, but she 
knew that he too would soon sail for America ; 
and as she felt in a remorseful way that she 
was in some sort to blame for all this, she de- 
termined not to desert her friend. Professor 
Waite’s arguments and Adelaide’s entreaties 
were of no avail, the less so as the contessa, on 
hearing Tib’s decision, made no attempt to dis- 
suade her, though her heart yearned for the 
child, and was pained by the coldness with 
which Tib received the (what seemed to her 


SHRED 8 AND PATCHES. 


299 


hypocritical) messages of affection to her j)ar- 
ents. She would not have been so misjudged if 
Tib could have understood her real motives or 
could have read the following letter, which the 
contessa had received from her relative shortly 
after Van’s departure : 

My dear Cousin : This is a strange question 
which you ask me, ‘‘ Have any members of the 
Zanelli family ever shown a tendency to in- 
sanity ?” You assure me that your reasons for 
asking this question are weighty, and that my 
answer shall be held in confidence. As for this 
last assurance, I care not who knows, for I can 
truly reply that there has never been but one 
case of insanity in our long line, and I am 
thankful that case is clearly proved. Our an- 
cestor, Giovanni Zanelli, the so-called alchemist, 
who suffered death as a malefactor, was mad, 
and this his own writings testify ; but for this 
we should all be grateful, since it absolves him 
of all accountability for the deeds which he 
freely confessed both before the tribunal and in 
his own handwriting in a little diary which he 
kept in a cabinet in his private apartments in 
your house. My grandfather, when visiting 


300 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


your husband’s grandmother, was so impressed 
with horror on reading this record, that he cut 
out the leaves of the diary and brought them 
away, intending to burn them. His conscience 
would not, however, allow him to do this, and 
after his return to Rome he could never bring 
himself to return them to hiS relative and host- 
ess, thinking that if she did not know their 
contents it was cruelty to inform her. My fa- 
ther, to whom he showed them later in life, put 
the same construction upon them that I do, 
grateful that they proved the insanity of one 
whose misdeeds have always been our shame. 
He sent the leaves to your husband, who mis- 
judged the motive, considered the act an insult, 
and returned them. I would have said nothing 
about them but for your question, as your hus- 
band wrote that he intended that neither you 
nor your son should ever hear of this ancestor. 
I am sure, however, that he was wrong, and 
that you will be as glad as I am to know that 
this unfortunate man was demented. If no 
other proof were to be found, the internal evi- 
dence contained in his observations on the dis- 
covery of ‘‘ a sovereign ointment for the plague” 
is sufficient. This crazy man believed that he 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


301 


had found an unfailing cure for this dread dis- 
ease in blood freshly drawn from a goat, itself 
diseased, which he kept tethered in the garden 
back of his laboratory. He was led to this in- 
sane and dangerous conclusion by the fact that 
the animal had been owned by a woman who 
was afflicted with the plague in its early stages, 
and seeing her goat attacked and wounded by 
a savage dog, she had rushed out to drive him 
away, and was herself bitten. Dr. Zanelli im- 
agined that in binding up the goat’s wound 
some of its blood had been transfused to her 
own bleeding hands. At any rate, being called 
in after this accident, he watched the progress 
of the case, and as the woman most unfortu- 
nately recovered from the plague, he came to the 
conclusion which I have stated, bought her goat, 
and inoculated his plague- smitten patients with 
its poisonous blood. In this way he was doubt- 
less responsible for the death of many of the 
good citizens of Venice. Not morally responsi- 
ble, however, and he should have been confined 
in a madhouse instead of executed. Some time 
after his death a letter was received through a 
member of the De Rovere family, which we 
judge to have been written by that Chrysolarus 


S02 


WITCU WINNIE IN VENICE. 


who was considered his confederate. It be- 
sought the son of Giovanni Zanelli to remove 
to Constantinople, where he would be cared for 
by those who knew and could prove his father’s 
innocence. This invitation was not accepted, 
it being thought at the time to come from the 
Sultan, who was supposed to have bribed Dr. 
Zanelli to the murder of his fellow- citizens. 
Your husband knew of this letter, and regarded 
it, as we do, as written by Chrysolarus— for who 
else could prove his innocence, and how could 
it be proved excepting by showing that he was 
a madman ? 

Trusting that you may derive as much satis- 
faction from this conclusion that we have al- 
ways experienced, I rest. 

Your affectionate cousin, 

Faustina. 

On reading this letter, all hope died in the 
contessa’s heart. She did not question the 
conclusion arrived at by her relative, and she 
now felt that for Angelo to marry would be a 
positive crime. He might any day become a 
maniac, and her only thought was to spare both 
her son and Tib the calamity of loving one an- 


SIIUEDS A^D PATCHES. 


303 


other, if indeed such a calamity had not al- 
ready happened. She knew that she was mis- 
understood, but she believed that she was 
acting for the best good of both, and she did 
not falter. 

Just before their departure, Winnie and Tib 
made a farewell visit to the model, Violante, 
and arranged that the school for laundry work 
and the excursions to the Lido should continue 
through the summer. There was much lament- 
ing and kissing of hands both by Violante, her 
sister, and the children — for the two American 
girls had gained the affection of all who knew 
them. Violante reminded them that there was 
another of the old letters which they had not 
read. Tib disclaimed any further interest in 
them, but Winnie suggested that they might 
prove to be of importance to Count Angelo, and 
they accepted it from Violante, and presented it 
unread to the contessa, who looked it over and 
mailed it to her son, though she found nothing 
in it to change her belief in the fatal heritage 
of insanity bequeathed by Dr. Zanelli to his 
descendants. The contessa was in the little 
company that escorted Winnie and Tib to the 
railway station, but their farewells were forced 


304 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


and coldly polite. Tib found on tlieir seat — as 
the contessa had so often prepared it for their 
gondola trips to the lagoons— a dainty basket 
of luncheon. Winnie scoffed volubly, and de- 
clared that a morsel of it would choke her ; 
that if she had one of the old alchemist’s test 
glasses it would have shattered at the first drop 
of the Chianti, and she gave it all ostentatious- 
ly away to a large family party who were their 
travelling companions, and regretted her con- 
tumely hungrily and crossly in the latter part 
of the day. But Tib hardly knew that she 
was hungry and faint. She leaned back with 
closed eyelids, through which the tears were 
creeping, for she knew that her dream of Ven- 
ice was dead, and that whatever solace in work 
and joy in self-renunciation her future might 
have in store, Venice would always be, as now, 

“ So dear, that in the memory she remains 
Like an old love, who would indeed have been 
Our only love, but died.” 

And Angelo ? The news that Tib had left 
Venice was indeed a great surprise ; but it did 
not bring any sense of personal loss, for he had 
decided to remain where he felt that he was 
needed and was doing good until the special 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


305 


great exigency had passed. After that the 
world might be wide, but he would find her 
somewhere, for the papers which his mother 
had sent him, and which had been discovered 
through Tib’s agency, had removed the horri- 
ble weight which had been crushing his mind 
and had awakened hope in his heart. 

The first of these manuscripts was another 
letter from Orazio Yecelli to Yiolante Palma : 

Admired and Loved Lady : I am smitten 
of a grievous malady, wherefrom 1 fear me I 
shall not recover, since my beloved master, who 
alone had the secret of its cure, is no longer 
with us. Wherefore I am minded to do quickly 
all needful things. 

I have already written you how my fellow- 
pupil, Chrysolarus, deserted my master in his 
sore peril in cowardice, lest he also should fall 
under the ban of the Church. Yet was he not 
without compunction, for I have latterly re- 
ceived a written declaration of our dear mas- 
ter’s innocence signed by this remorseful disci- 
ple. This paper was neither dated nor was the 
address of the sender given, showing that he is 
still in fear of his life. It was brought me by 


306 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 

a sailor, who said that he had received it in 
some port of the Indies. Alas ! it came too 
late to be of any service to onr dear master, nor 
can I send it to his family, for they have left 
Venice, and their house stands empty and for- 
lorn, nor know I whether they will ever come 
back to occupy it. I paused lately before my 
good master’s door, blocked by the Inquisition, 
but I found an entrance over the garden wall, 
which as a lad I had often scaled with the help 
of the overhanging branches of the tamarisk 
tree ; and making my way, like a thief, through 
a broken shutter into the house, I placed this 
declaration of his disciple Chrysolarus behind 
the portrait of my revered master, which my 
father painted in happier times. 

I write you all this, most esteemed lady, not 
alone because of the interest which I know you 
have always felt in my master, and because I 
know what joy it will give you to know of this 
tardy refutation of that great calumny, but 
also because, though older than myself, God 
may order it that you live longer, and I would 
that some one other than I possess the knowl- 
edge of the hiding-place of this paper, to con- 
vey the same to any member of that unhappy 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


307 


family, should their whereabouts become 
known. 

May time kindly spare to you that beauty 
which so many celebrated artists have delighted 
in recording, and may providence from plague 
and pestilence and all other mischiefs ever pro- 
tect you, is the prayer of 

Your ladyship’s devoted servitor, 

Okazio Yecelli. 

Only a few days after writing this letter, 
Orazio and his father both died of the plague— 
Orazio in the public pest-house and the great 
painter alone in his studio. But Chrysolarus’s 
refutation had at last reached the family of the 
maligned man. The contessa found it behind 
the portrait, and with it another long letter 
containing a revelation so astounding that 
Orazio had not dared to hint at it in his letter 
to Violante, and, indeed, would hardly have left 
the revelation where it could be found, were it 
not that the actors in the drama were either 
dead or nearing that safe haven where the rage 
of the most powerful enemy cannot follow. 
Chrysolarus had proved Dr. Zanelli’s inno- 
cence, but Orazio did not dare to have the case 


308 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


tried over again, as it would have been had it 
been known that the alchemist had escaped the 
execution sentence and was in reality living in 
safety at that time in India. 

The time had not then come for this dis- 
closure ; but to Angelo the letter explained all 
that had seemed to him so mysterious and so 
impossible to reconcile in the disagreement of 
dates and the different handwriting, and his an- 
cestor’s identity with the learned and benevo- 
lent man whose record in India he had so great- 
ly admired was now incontestably proven. 

The letter was addressed to the alchemist’s 
son, and read as follows : 

To Ascanio Zanelli., where'oer he may be : 

Before you shall have received this, my dear 
son, the trusty messenger by whom I send it 
has promised to break to you gently the tid- 
ings (which, from their astounding improba- 
bility and the joy with which I doubt not they 
will be welcomed, might otherwise prove too 
great a shock for your delicate sensibility) that 
the father whom you have mourned as dead, 
and whose dishonored corpse hundreds of his 
townspeople believed that they saw burned in 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


309 


Venice, by the grace of Heaven miraculously 
escaped db hoste maligno., and is now both alive 
and, with the exception of a cramping of my 
fingers by rheumatism, in good health. After 
the first shock of this revelation is over, you 
will be consumed with curiosity to know how 
this can be, and this most natural desire I will 
now gratify. 

You doubtless remember with affection my 
pupil, Orazio Yecelli, and the delight which 
you took in the playing upon the organ of his 
fair sister Lavinia, when on certain occasions 
I took you with me to the house of my friend 
the great painter, Titian Yecelli. You will also 
recall the personages who most did frequent his 
society, and the pleasure I had in their com- 
pany. Know then, my dear son, that my won- 
derful preservation from death is due to the 
devotion, daring, and ingenuity of that same 
coterie, with whom 1 used to hold such delight- 
ful converse. 

It is a thing almost incredible that so many 
should have been in the secret and should have 
had actual parts to play in the carrying out of 
the plot, and yet nothing have been discovered 
by the spies of the Council of Ten, who are 


310 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


everywhere. Yet such was the unanimity of 
feeling existing between this band of brothers, 
such their closeness in guarding the secret, 
that not only was my escape successfully car 
ried out, but (as I am informed by a Venetian 
lately arrived in India, who knew not with 
whom he was speaking) it is universally be- 
lieved, both by the populace and the officers of 
the law and of the Inquisition, that I suffered 
death, as was designed. 

This, therefore, was the manner in which the 
deed was accomplished : My friends were not 
idle while I lay in prison before my condemna- 
tion, for they knew of my arrest, and Cardinal 
Bembo was informed of what the Inquisitor 
was plotting against me. He therefore ap-, 
peared in my behalf at the trial and labored 
exceedingly for me, but could effect nothing. 
All this was freely discussed one evening at 
Titian’s garden, all present being strongly in 
my favor excepting the poet Aretino. There- 
fore, after he and all others of the company had 
taken gondolas for home, Sansovino, Titian, and 
Bembo began to plot for my rescue. As Titian 
was then painting one of his great frescoes in 
the Ducal Palace, he passed often in and out, 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


311 


and his gondola and gondoliers were well 
known to the guards of the palace. Sansovino 
also, in his character of architect to the govern- 
ment, was also well known, and had access to 
every part of the palace ; while Bembo, as 
keeper of the library, was frequently seen com- 
ing and going. Therefore it was an easy mat- 
ter for any of the three to enter or leave the 
building at will, or to penetrate to any part of 
it so far as the Bridge of Sighs, which connect- 
ed it with the prisons on the other side of the 
canal. But to pass that bridge and enter the 
cells of the condemned was another matter, 
strict watch being kept upon the prisoners, and 
this vigilance being increased as the time ap- 
proached for their execution. Nevertheless, 
Sansovino managed to get a permit from the 
superintendent of the prison to visit it for the 
purpose of observing what repairs might be 
necessary. This he did several times, so that 
the two jailers who relieved each other’s watch 
became accustomed to seeing him taking meas- 
urements and examining the locks and suggest- 
ing better contrivances for the safe-keeping of 
the prisoners. In this way he took a wax 
mould of the lock to my cell, and himself made 


312 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


a key to fit it— for he was very expert in iron 
work, and had a forge indiis own apartments, 
where he made knockers and such small objects 
— but he took care not to excite suspicion by be- 
traying any acquaintance with me or desire to 
see me. Indeed, I had thought myself desert- 
ed of my friends, for none came to me but you, 
who were j)ermitted to take farewell of me in 
the presence of the jailer. Only the priest who 
was appointed to minister spiritual consolation 
was allowed to remain with me the last night. 
But Cardinal Bembo effected that Pomponio, the 
oldest son of Titian, a priest indeed, but a devil 
for daring and adventure, should be appointed 
to this office. Wild as he was, he had a kindly 
heart, and to him principally I owe my safety. 
He came to me also before the last night and 
told me to be of good courage, for my rescue 
was in preparation. 

I was to be strangled at daybreak and my 
body delivered to the agents of the Inquisition 
to be publicly burned ; but my three friends, 
Titian, Bembo, and Sansovino, so bribed not 
only the executioner, but all others who had a 
right to see to the carrying out of the sentence, 
that their duty was most carelessly done, and 


SHREDS AJVD PATCHES. 


313 


yet none of these men suspected that I had 
gotten clean off, but only that certain rigors of 
the sentence were omitted. The executioner was 
told that I had swallowed poison and died that 
night, and as my body was to be publicly 
burned, he felt that even if not actually dead I 
soon would be, and he was persuaded by Pom- 
ponio by a large gift of money to leave my body 
unviolated by the strangler’s cord. Cardinal 
Bembo had obtained, for the sake of my fam- 
ily, the grace that my corpse should not be 
roughly handled, but should be borne from my 
cell to my funeral pyre in an open coffin, and 
should be burned without being taken there- 
from. This coffin was sent to my cell on the 
eve of my execution, and was carefully exam- 
ined by the jailers ; but as it was simply a lid- 
less coffin with nothing therein, it excited no sus- 
picions. But when Pomponio came, had he 
been properly searched much might have been 
discovered and all spoiled, for he wore under 
his priest’s gown a robe of Sansovino’s with a 
hood, and, most dangerous evidence of all, had it 
been found upon him, a mask which Sansovino 
(who was most expert in modelling) had fash- 
ioned in wax, and which reproduced my fea- 


314 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


tures to the very life, or rather death, for the 
complexion had the pallor of a corpse. Being 
arrived with these accessories, as soon as we 
were unobserved he proceeded to construct an 
effigy with one of my sheets and the stuffing of 
my mattress, which he dressed in the sanbenito, 
or yellow shroud which had been sent by the 
Inquisition, and in which victims were burned. 
We fastened the mask under the yellow cap, 
and with its closed eyes and real hair and 
beard, it had a most natural effect ; and then 
we laid it on the bed, adding the waxen hands 
and bare feet which Sansovino had not neglect- 
ed to send. Then with all speed I put on the 
hooded garment of the architect, and with the 
false key let myself out of my own cell and 
passed into a cell that was not occupied, where 
I pretended to be busied with some drawing 
which Sansovino had left there that morning. 
The jailer going his rounds looked first through 
the wicket into my cell, and seeing me, as he 
supposed, stretched on my bed, the door safely 
locked, and the priest on his knees, next came 
to the open door of the cell where I sat, and 
was surprised to see the architect there. Never- 
theless, imagining that the other jailer had let 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


315 


me in during his watch, as I handed him the 
architect's passport, my face shrouded in the 
hood and my figure sufficiently resembling that 
of Sansovino, he suspected nothing and oblig- 
ingly let me out. This was the crucial mo- 
ment ; but my peril was not over, for I had to 
pass across the Bridge of Sighs and through the 
Ducal Palace. Here, indeed, I knew that Titian 
awaited me, and indeed his was one of the first 
figures that 1 saw as I entered the palace. But 
so eminent a man could not stand in a public 
place long without attracting attention, and he 
was surrounded by a group of men, of whom he 
had been vainly striving to rid himself. Not 
daring to approach, I stood aloof, but the in- 
stant that Titian saw me he exclaimed : “ Ah, 
there is Sansovino ! I must have him to dinner 
with me to-night,” and with scant ceremony to 
the others, he thrust his arm through mine and 
hurried me through the halls and down the 
Giant’s Staircase. Yet still we were not safe, 
for as we went we were spied by Aretino, who 
fell a-gaping with wonder, crying that he had 
just come from the library, where he had left 
Sansovino, yet here he was. Titian tried to 
push by him, but he stuck to him, saying that 


31G 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


since it was his good fortune to have found him, 
he was minded to go home with him and listen 
to the playing of his lovely daughter. In this 
crisis Bembo came to our aid, for he had sta- 
tioned himself between the two columns of the 
Piazzetta to watch, and seeing the plight we 
were in, he rushed forward and, affecting a 
great fondness for Aretino, whom, however, he 
could not abide, he begged him to come to his 
rooms and read his last comedy to a company of 
literati there assembled. And Aretino, greatly 
flattered, allowed himself to be led off. Despite 
the danger I was in, I laughed when I thought 
of the joke, and I wondered whether Bembo 
found others to listen with him to the play ; and 
then for the first time I knew how much he 
loved me, since he was willing to submit to 
such penance for my sake. At the Riva we 
found Titian’s gondola in waiting with Orazio 
and a worthy young gentleman of the Cadore 
country, betrothed to Lavinia — for Titian would 
not trust to the silence of his servants — and 
these young men rowed us out to Chioggia, 
where was a ship setting sail for Constanti- 
nople, in which, being supplied with funds 
by my friends, I took passage, calling down 


SUREDS AND PATCHES. 


317 


tlie blessings of Heaven on the heads of my 
preservers. 

They promised to inform yon of my rescue, 
but urged me not to write either to you or them, 
as by so doing I might endanger all their lives. 
Wherefore for a time I kept silence. But at 
Constantinople, whom should I meet but my 
pupil, Hieronymus Chrysolarus, who was over- 
joyed to see me safe, and fell upon his knees, 
begging me to forgive his d.esertion, which I 
readily did, having compassion on the weak- 
ness of flesh, and knowing in what peril he 
stood. Moreover, he has amply retrieved his 
fault, for no son could be more loving and dute- 
ous than he. I abode with him many months 
in Constantinople, and from thence, being con- 
sumed with such hunger of heart to lay eyes 
on you that I could in no wise restrain myself, 
I wrote you under an assumed name, but in 
such guise that I thought you must under- 
stand, begging you to join me. Not daring to 
compromise my dear friends in Venice by send- 
ing the letter to them, I sent it to Genoa, in 
care of Francesco de Rovere, of the family of 
Pope Julian. For I argued that as that pontiff 
had befriended me on account of service done 


318 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


him in reference to the Borgia poison, yon 
might have sought the patronage of his fam- 
ily, and if not, for the sake of that service they 
might be minded to find you and deliver the 
letter. But having waited a whole year and 
no answer coming from you, I began to desj^air 
of the letter having reached you ; and seeing 
myself observed in the street one day, and fol- 
lowed by a stranger habited like a Venetian, I 
feared lest the letter might have fallen into the 
hands of my enemies and that I was spied upon. 
Therefore, though I had shaken off this fol- 
lower, I was ill at ease, and Chrysolarus like- 
wise, so that we travelled together to India, 
passing through many strange lands, and 
finally settled in this place, which we judged 
remote enough to free us from all danger. 
Situate on a spur of the Himalajm, the air is 
salubrious, and we are accommodated in a well- 
ordered house with native servants, and have 
built up a reputation as wise physicians, so 
that we have an extended practice, Chrysolarus 
travelling widely at the call of the wealthy 
princes and nabobs. But I bide quietly, devot- 
ing myself to my experiments, and happy there- 
in, excepting that I long for you, my dear son ; 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


319 


wherefore I beseech of you that you so arrange 
your affairs that you come out to me, whether 
for a longer or a shorter time, and if you are in 
need of money to defray the expense of the 
journey, and will write me how it can reach 
you, I will send it to you. The messenger 
whereby I send this is most trusty. He is a 
Venetian sailor who fell sick of a fever, and was 
left in Bombay' to die ; but Chrysolarus chanc- 
ing to be in the city at the time, heard of his 
case, and caused him to be brought to our home 
in a palanquin, where I nursed him back to 
health ; for which service he has sworn to seek 
out your whereabouts and deliver into your 
hands this letter, and failing in that, to give it 
most secretly to Orazio Yecelli. And so I trust 
it to his gratitude and sagacity and rest my 
vindication with time, which trieth every man’s 
work, praying God as I did the night I was con- 
demned to die : 

“ Ab hoste maligno defende me, 

In bora mortis mem voca me, 

Ut cum sanctis suis laude'm te. 

In saecula smculorum. Amen.” 

And for thee, dear son, I leave my benedic- 


320 


WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 


tion, though, our day has been stormy. Woc- 
tem quietam concedet Dominum, 

Your loving father, 

Giovanni Zanelli. 

To Angelo’s mind all problems were solved, 
all barriers swept away ; but not so for the con- 
tessa. When he returned and told her the se- 
cret which her discerning eyes had long ago 
discovered, and announced his intention to set 
out upon another quest, her heart was torn with 
anguish. She could not crush his hopes that 
evening, but after he had kissed her good-night 
she took her Cousin Faustina’s letter and the 
missing leaves which had been cut from the 
alchemist’s diary down to his laboratory, where 
Van was sitting, and, patiently translating them 
for him, submitted the question of Dr. Zanelli’ s 
sanity to his judgment. 

She was not prepared for the result ; for Yan 
first sprang from his chair and excitedly paced 
the room ; then as she concluded with the 
alchemist’s description of his discovery of the 
antidote for the plague, he fairly shouted : 

Maniac ! All who suspected him, perse- 
cuted him, tried and condemned him were 


SHREDS AND PATCHES. 


321 


maniacs. He was the only sane physician of 
his time ; he was a martyr to science, a tremen- 
dous genius. Do you know what he did ? He 
anticipated the discoveries of modern bacteriol- 
ogy. He did not quite understand the entire 
import of his discovery ; but if they had not 
meddled with him, if they had left him in peace 
in this laboratory, instead of hounding him to 
ignominy and death, he would have saved the 
city, and the latest discovery of modern science 
would have been announced three centuries ago. ’ ’ 

The contessa flitted from the room to the bal- 
cony, where her son was looking far out toward 
the Adriatic. Her heart was full of remorse 
for her part in the drama, which she had acted 
in all good faith, and she confessed all unre- 
servedly. 

Can you forgive me ? Will she forgive 
me she asked anxiously as Angelo drew her 
closely to him. 

‘‘ If she loves me, there will be nothing to for- 
give,” he replied. ‘‘ She will understand that 
when she thought you were building an im- 
penetrable wall between us you were in real- 
ity undermining the crumbling stones which 
blocked the doorway to our happiness.” 


322 


WITCH wmmE m Venice. 


Did she love him, and did Angelo find his 
Nellie Zanelli ? ’Tis a question the author 
hopes to answer some day ; but she must bid 
her reader farewell for the present, for this 
second quest of Angelo’s has nothing to do 
with the story of the old alchemist or of Witch 
Winnie in Venice. 


THE END. 





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